UT Students Registered Back Home Have Until Friday to Cast a Limited Ballot — and Only at One Austin Office
For University of Texas students whose registration still sits in their home county, the window closes Friday — and it was never open on Election Day. A limited ballot lets them vote in statewide races from Austin, but only in person, only during early voting, and only at the Travis County Clerk's Office on Airport Boulevard.
Thousands of UT Austin students live in Austin but are registered to vote somewhere else in Texas. For them, the most useful deadline of this election is not Nov. 3 — it is Friday, Oct. 30, the last day of early voting, The Daily Texan reported.
Texas law gives those students a middle path: the limited ballot. A voter registered in another Texas county can cast one in Travis County during early voting, voting in statewide elections — U.S. senator, governor, attorney general, Supreme Court — and in any election that would appear on both counties' ballots. What they cannot vote on from Austin is the purely local business of either county.
The catch is where, and when. A limited ballot can only be cast in person, only during the early-voting period — it does not exist on Election Day — and in Travis County only at one place: the County Clerk's Office at 5501 Airport Blvd. That office, like the Texas Union on campus, stays open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. The Union itself, one of seven county sites with extended hours, is the easy stop for students registered in Travis County; every other county site closes at 7 p.m.
Voters must bring an acceptable photo ID and may bring notes or a sample ballot with them. And the hard edge of the rule deserves repeating before the weekend: early voting ends Friday, there is no voting on Saturday, Sunday or Monday, and on Election Day a student registered back home must vote in that home county. For a student who cannot get home on Tuesday, Friday at Airport Boulevard is the whole election.
