This morning i had a disturbing encounter with the Texas Secretary of State personal voter portal. We all would be well advised to check the status of our voter registration in good time before the November election. That’s what I was doing. I went to the page on Texas.gov and clicked the “Check if you’re registered.” Button.
Texas Voter Registration | Texas.gov
There I filled and submitted the form, titled “Are You Registered?”. Since I know all the information was correct and I am in possession of a current voter registration card, I was shocked to see the message ““Voter NOT found using the information provided…” I tried several times and occasionally it worked and showed me my registration information.
On one of the failed attempts, I checked the browser console and found an error message indicating that the server was simply failing to return a response to the post. Technical problems are understandable, but giving the user a message that is misleading at best rather than an error report like “Service unavailable. Try later” is a real problem.
I decided to report the problem and went to their technical support page. There I filled out a long form and when I attempted to post it, I got another failure message, “Try again later”. Are we going to find signs on the polling stations: “Democracy not functioning. Try again Later?”
I still urge everyone to confirm their voter registration. If you live in Travis County you can also try: Voter Lookup – Travis County Clerk.
Try again until your vote is counted!
Stuart Hampton
As you know, as an alien I can’t and do not vote (there, I have that on the record), but an Austin musician voting friend of mine found that she was no longer officially registered to vote, despite being a regular voter and up to date on all her filings.
Mark Craig
I left several voter registration mail in forms at the meeting house. There is still plenty of time to send it in. Deadline for receipt is October 4, so, don’t delay!
Howard Hawhee
I have checked my own status a couple of times at the county’s site, and so far, so good. I plan to keep checking periodically.