A report by the Texas Civil Rights Project describes what the organization considers defective and inadequate voter registration procedures at both state and local levels. According to the report, these practices effectively disenfranchise thousands of Texans. There are seven bodies charged with registering people to vote, but the Secretary of State’s office doesn’t have enforcement power over them.
Here in Harris County, more than two million people were registered to vote last year. But that number may be short of the total number of people who should be eligible to vote. A report by the Houston Chronicle’s Mike Morris estimates as of the 2010 census, 2.9 million of the 4.1 million Harris County residents were 18 or older, suggesting a significant number of voting-age residents are not registered to vote.
On this edition of Houston Matters, we learn about the concerns raised by the Texas Civil Rights Project, and get reaction from the voter registrar for Harris County. We’ll learn about efforts to encourage Houstonians to register to vote, and find out why doing so can, at times, be challenging.
