With the political battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton raging on, and Election Day looming ever closer, Travis County has been getting creative in encouraging residents to register to vote. Now that the deadline has passed, we’ve got some good news to share!
Not only has the county Tax Office created a convenient text-to-register program, set tables up at the University of Texas at Austin, and made sure registration volunteers are equipped with both Spanish and English applications, they have also designated popular local businesses like ThunderCloud Subs and Alamo Drafthouse as legitimate voter registration locations. (The taco trucks helped, too.)
All of this is in pursuit of their goal to increase the amount of eligible Travis County residents who are registered to vote from 82 percent (635,000 voters) in 2012 to 90 percent or more in time for the 2016 presidential election.
Well, according to The Austin American-Statesman, they easily surpassed that number on Monday by pulling in more than 80,000 new voter registrations.
“It’s likely that by midnight on Tuesday, we will have 100,000 new registered voters than we did when we went to cast our vote in 2012,” Travis County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar Bruce Elfant told the Statesman. “We’re trying to make this as easy as possible. We want everyone who values their right to vote to make sure they’re registered.”
See you at the polls on November 8, Austin!
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Featured photo: Flickr user Theresa Thompson, CC licensed
