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Online Registration Hoax Could Put Texas Voters Offline At The Polls

KC Ivey
/
Flickr Creative Commons

Election officials don’t want anyone to be turned away from the polls next month because they thought they'd registered to vote online.

Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole says that happened in the 2008 presidential election. More than two dozen people ran into problems when they presented a computer printout from a website saying they were registered.  

“People were saying they were registered,” Pippins-Poole said. “They came up with these pieces of papers that said they were registered, but they were not registered.  We advised them that in the state of Texas, you cannot register online.”

Pippins-Poole says she’s had a couple of inquiries about websites or emails offering online registration this year. Eleven states do allow that. The sites apparently market to first-time and younger voters. And, she expects to hear some complaints when early voting starts.

You can print an online voter registration application from the Secretary of State website; fill it out, and mail it to your county registrar. The deadline to register is Oct. 9.

Former KERA reporter BJ Austin spent more than 25 years in broadcast journalism, anchoring and reporting in Atlanta, New York, New Orleans and Dallas. Along the way, she covered Atlanta City Hall, the Georgia Legislature and the corruption trials of Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards.