One vote matters

Election Day is rapidly approaching. Here’s how to register before you cast your ballot.

Ask Shelley Simonds whether you should bother to vote.

Simonds ran for the Virginia House of Delegates last year. On election night, it looked like she had lost, but not by much. Then a recount put her on top by a single vote, and it seemed she had won. Then a panel of judges ruled that one improperly marked ballot was invalid, turning the election into a tie. In the end, the race was decided by a random drawing.

She lost. She really could have used that extra vote.

Tight elections like that happen a lot more often and a lot closer to home than you might think. Here in Houston, Pam Holm was elected to city council in 2003 with a winning margin of 27 votes. Four years earlier, Mark Goldberg won a city council race by just 26 votes. And nobody needs to explain the importance of each vote to former Houstonian George W. Bush, who owes his presidency to 537 ballots cast in Florida.

If you’re one of those people who makes a last minute run to the supermarket before a Super Bowl party to buy chips and queso, listen up. That’s not the way voting works. You’re not allowed to wake up on Election Day and decide at the last-minute that you need to cast a ballot. We’ve got primary elections coming up, and you need to make sure you’re registered. Now.

Voting in our state is a two-step process. Unlike other states, Texas doesn’t allow registration on Election Day. If you’re eligible to vote, you need to register at least 30 days in advance.

That’s why you see a voter registration form below. If you’re eligible to vote and you’re not already registered, clip it out, fill it out and mail it in. If you’re already registered to vote, do everybody a favor: Clip it out and give this form to somebody else. Make it a point to find someone — maybe a friend, maybe a co-worker, maybe a cashier at a grocery store — who still needs to register to vote.

Mail the completed form to your county voter registrar’s office. Be sure you mail it to the right county. Below you’ll find the addresses of those offices in Harris and surrounding counties.

If you’re not sure whether you’re already registered, if you’re not sure where to send your form, or if you have any other questions about voting, the state runs an easily navigated website at VoteTexas.gov. (State legislators really ought to change the law and allow people to register online.)

By the way, even convicted felons may be eligible to vote in Texas. If you’ve been convicted of a felony, once you’ve completed your punishment — with a prison sentence, parole, supervision, probation or a pardon — you’re immediately eligible to register to vote in our state.

Voting in 2018 is especially important in the Houston area, where a couple of incumbent congressmen are retiring. Longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Gene Green and Republican U.S. Rep. Ted Poe are both leaving office, so we’re about to send at least two new members of Congress to Washington. They’re in heavily gerrymandered districts that their parties’ new candidates are almost sure to win, so voters will effectively elect new representatives during the March primaries. Meanwhile, political analysts say U.S. Rep. John Culberson is in danger of losing his once solidly Republican seat to a Democrat because Hillary Clinton carried his district in the last presidential election. So the stakes are unusually high.

The last day to register to vote in the Texas primaries is Monday, Feb. 5. Early voting begins in less than a month, on Tuesday, Feb. 20. Primary Election Day is Tuesday, March 6. Be sure you register. Be sure you vote.

If you wonder why you should bother, ask Shelley Simonds. Or George W. Bush.