Houstonians head to the polls soon to elect a new mayor and vote on a handful of major state-wide propositions. There is some potent misinformation out there. Here are some of the current myths and whether they have any truth to them.

Myth: Party Affiliations Will Not Be on the Ballot
Verdict: False

The myth goes back to 2017 when the Texas Legislature did away with one-button straight-ticket voting. Texans can still cast straight-ticket ballots; they just have to enter each vote individually. Regardless, party affiliations will be present, which you can check on your sample ballot. Be aware that school board elections have been non-partisan for a century, so those candidates will not have a party affiliation listed. Be prepared to research them individually.

Myth: You Cannot Vote on Election Day Without ID
Verdict: Half-True

In Texas, voters are required by law to present a current piece of state-issued photo ID to cast a ballot. However, if you don’t have the ID with you or have been unable to obtain it, there are still ways to cast a ballot. Utility bills, bank statements, paycheck stubs, and any government document that contains a voter’s current address can be used instead as long as the voter executes a Reasonable Impediment Declaration. Even if a voter has none of this, they can cast a provisional ballot. That ballot will only be counted if the voter shows up to a vote registrar’s office within six calendar days with an acceptable form of ID. The standards for Reasonable Impediment are pretty broad, including work schedules, transportation issues, and illness.

Myth: The Governor Can Overturn the Harris County Election
Verdict: False

This year saw the Texas Legislature laser-focused on reducing the power of Harris County election offices. To that end, they passed Senate Bill 1750, a sweeping law that eliminated the Harris County upper election structure and transferred the duties to the county clerk and the tax assessor-collector. A Texas Supreme Court ruling in August allowed this law to go into effect.

Even if the law is ultimately upheld, it would not allow the governor or state government to overturn an election whose results they disagreed with. That’s a different bill, Senate Bill 1993, which has not passed the Texas House, and it only allows the state to re-run the election, not ignore it.

Myth: Digital Voting Machines Add Fake Votes
Verdict: False

In 2022, Harris County updated a lot of its digital voting machines, leading to some hiccups on Election Day. A popular viral video that was going around at the time said it showed digital machines adding hundreds of fraudulent votes.

It was inaccurate. The video showed some Dallas-area machines having a processing delay, not adding fraudulent votes. There has never been any evidence of digital machines in Houston or Texas in general adding or subtracting votes.

Myth: Attorney General Ken Paxton Throws Mail in Votes Away
Verdict: False

Attorney General Ken Paxton has stated that successfully kept millions of mail-in votes from being counted, possibly preserving Texas as a red state in 2020. This has gotten twisted into accusations Paxton just threw away ballots, which skewed heavily Democratic.

What Paxton was admitting to was successfully challenging expanded mail-in voting. Paxton used the courts to prevent county election officials from mailing out ballots to people who did not ask for them. By his own claim, this helped Republicans maintain control of the state, but there is zero evidence he actually threw out ballots.

Now, there has been a problem with mail-in ballots being discarded if they are deemed incorrectly filled out. Mail-in voters are encouraged to read instructions very carefully to prevent this.

Election Day is November 7.