Texas: City, County, State Board Of Education Elections Early Voting Begins Today

A few basics...

Here's a map of locations where Harris County residents may vote early. (.pdf format.) IMPORTANT NOTE: in general, YOU CANNOT VOTE EARLY AT YOUR REGULAR ELECTION-DAY POLLING PLACE, AND VICE VERSA! To vote early, find a suitable polling place on the linked map; pick one reasonably close to home. Also: NOTE THAT EARLY VOTING POLLING PLACES ARE OPEN DIFFERENT HOURS FROM REGULAR ELECTION-DAY POLLING PLACES! If you live in Texas but not in Harris County, search the web for your county clerk's office or voter registrar's office. Something like this... "harris county TX 2013 election information" ... gets all the relevant sites on Google.

New this year, thanks to the goddamnGOP: You MUST present a photo ID to vote! Your driver's license will do, but ONLY IF YOUR NAME AS PRESENTED ON YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE MATCHES THE NAME ON YOUR VOTER CERTIFICATE! If they differ... e.g., if you are a woman who married and took her husband's name, but who has not yet made the change on her driver's license, YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO PRESENT A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE. The document you present MUST BE THE ORIGINAL, NOT A PHOTOCOPY. Other than a driver's license, several other forms of Photo ID are allowed; SEE HERE... but note that I HAVE HEARD YES AND NO ABOUT PASSPORTS. If you receive definitive information about passports as voter Photo ID, please inform me. (To me, the most interesting fact is that a concealed handgun license is a valid ID for voting. I suppose if you are known to be packing heat, your chances of being allowed to vote improve noticeably...)

If your Texas driver's license name and voter certificate name match except for, say, a middle name versus a middle initial, YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO HAVE THE CLERK FILL IN A LINE ON A "SIMILAR NAME AFFIDAVIT" WHICH YOU MUST INITIAL to confirm that the difference is incidental and only representational, i.e., that the names are the same and are the name of the same person (you). Expect this to take a while. If the goddamnGOP election judge at your poll is a very determined sort, expect this to take quite some time, i.e., don't bet on being able to vote on your half-hour lunch break.

If you have the feeling the goddamnGOP doesn't want women to vote, ask yourself: WHERE DID YOU EVER GET THAT IDEA? [irony /]