The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 3 general election is Oct. 5. Early voting starts Oct. 19 and runs through Oct. 30, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office.
The last day for an application to vote by mail must be received by Friday, Oct. 23.Voters can visit votetexas.gov to confirm they are registered to vote, see what is on the ballot where they live, and get other election-related information. That site is maintained by the Texas Secretary of State.Meanwhile, The Texas Tribune reported that an unknown number of voter registration applications were delayed because of an error by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The agency failed to forward the applications, submitted online through its driver’s license portal, to county voter registrars.
Texas Democrats have called on Gov. Greg Abbott to investigate the problem.
With the Oct. 5 deadline approaching, the delayed registrations from DPS could add to processing backlogs at affected counties. A spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office said affected voters can still have their ballots counted as long as they submitted their registration before Oct. 5.
The DPS portal accounted for about 6 million voter registrations from 2020 to 2024. Texas has more than 18 million registered voters.
Judge: Texas must air-condition all prisons by end of 2029
A federal judge has ordered the state to air-condition its entire prison system by the end of 2029, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has estimated that could cost the state $1.5 billion.
Nearly two-thirds of the 143,000 prisoners now held in Texas prisons do not have air-conditioning. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Pittman said the prison agency had “minimized and misled” the court about the seriousness of the heat problem.
“The data that TDCJ does not collect also paints a picture of an agency that is not attempting to meaningfully understand or document the dangers and impacts of heat,” Pitman wrote.
A TDCJ spokesperson took issue with the judge’s characterization.
“TDCJ has robust heat mitigation efforts in place to protect the safety of its population and staff,” Amanda Hernandez said in an email.
The state will appeal the ruling.
Camp Mystic under criminal investigation
Camp Mystic, the Hill Country girls’ summer camp where 28 people died in the July 2025 floods, is under criminal investigation by the Texas Rangers, kut.org reported. Fourteen search warrants were executed against family and staff members who ran the camp. KUT News obtained a copy of the affidavit filed against Tweety Eastland, whose husband, Dick, was one of the 28 who died.
The affidavit states the Rangers have probable cause to believe the camp’s leaders committed a number of criminal offenses, including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, injury to a child, deadly conduct, and abandoning or endangering a child.
“These offenses were committed against child campers—including both deceased victims and surviving campers of the flood event,” Brant Johnston, an investigator with the Texas Rangers, wrote in the document.
The affidavits are intended to allow the Rangers to obtain electronic data from Tweety and other members of the Eastland family that owns the camp, as well as camp staff members. A Kerr County state district judge approved it earlier this month.
Camp Mystic’s owners are being sued in civil court by more than a dozen families.
Land commissioner backs virtual border wall
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham told the Houston Chronicle that a virtual border wall makes “the most sense” for much of West Texas, where plans to build a physical wall have drawn considerable opposition.
“The bottom line is there are places where physical barriers make sense, and there are places where they don’t. And we just want the solution that’s best for Texas,” Buckingham said in an interview with the Chronicle’s editorial board. “I think especially when you get to West Texas, a virtual wall, in my opinion, makes the most sense for most of that area.”
The Trump administration is moving to build a border wall across the more than 13 million acres the state agency controls, most of which is in West Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott has previously questioned the logic of building a physical wall in “rugged, isolated areas like Big Bend.”
Buckingham sent a cease-and-desist letter in July to U.S. Customs and Border Protection after a contractor for the agency was discovered clearing state-controlled land without permission.
Buckingham is running for reelection against Democrat Ben Flores, a former Bay City council member.
Comptroller’s office fires dozens of employees
The Texas comptroller’s office fired 41 employees recently, after agency leaders were told to submit lists of people to be terminated, The Dallas Morning News reported. Comptroller Don Huffines, appointed to the post by Abbott last summer and the Republican nominee in November, campaigned on shrinking the size of the state’s government.
In a recent interview, Huffines defended how he is doing his job since taking the helm.
“You’re going to hear a lot about how I’m changing the agency, consolidating different divisions,” he said. “I’m making it more efficient.”
The 41 terminations make up less than 2% of the agency’s nearly 3,000 full-time employees.
Huffines faces Democratic nominee Sarah Eckhardt, a state senator from Austin. Eckhardt was critical of the firings, saying they would have a financial impact on the state’s revenue.
“Not only does a reduction-in-force reduce the comptroller’s ability to collect lawfully levied taxes, but a reduction in institutional knowledge and expertise also significantly reduces their ability to collect,” she said.
Red tide reported off the coast of Galveston
Biologists with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department have begun receiving reports of a red tide bloom off the coast of Galveston. They are monitoring fish kills and taking water samples around Crystal Beach and southern Galveston Island.
“Water samples indicate moderate to high concentrations of red tide cells, and beachgoers are reporting mild to severe respiratory irritation resulting from the bloom,” the news release said.
Red tide is a naturally occurring concentration of a microscopic alga that produces a toxin. Dense concentrations are known as “blooms” and kill fish by paralyzing their central nervous systems. This can result in dead fish washing up on Gulf beaches.
Gary Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published a number of community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Cedar Park. Email: gborders@texaspress.com.
