Fifteen Days Out: Texas Opens Early Voting as DOJ Appeals Voter-Roll Ruling and Sues California Over Mail Ballots

October 19, 2026 · Category: Field & Elections

Texas opened in-person early voting on Monday, October 19, 15 days before Election Day on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The window runs through Friday, October 30; registered voters may vote at any early-voting location in their county of registration, and hours vary by location VoteTexas Texas Secretary of State.

Texas joins a national early vote that is growing quickly. NBC News' tracker, which aggregates daily state totals from TargetSmart and state officials, showed 9,549,628 mail-in and early in-person votes cast nationally as of its October 19 update, about 6.8 million by mail and 2.8 million in person, with 55,383,560 mail ballots requested or sent NBC News. Georgia offers a sense of the pace: its Secretary of State reported 188,667 in-person ballots on the state's first day of early voting, compared with 134,962 on the first day in 2022 Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia lists Friday, October 23 as the last day to request an absentee ballot from a county registrar Georgia.gov.

The fight over voter data, meanwhile, moved to two courts. On October 16 the Justice Department filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from the October 9 judgment that vacated what the court called DOJ's "Voter List Maintenance Policy" Notice of appeal, and asked the district court to stay that judgment pending appeal. The motion states "There is no such policy," and records that the plaintiffs oppose a stay DOJ motion.

A day earlier, on October 15, the department sued California, asking a federal court to stop the state from tabulating vote-by-mail ballots from more than 20,000 people the federal government says are likely noncitizens until their citizenship is verified U.S. Attorney's Office, C.D. Cal.. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said her office was given 48 hours to act, 21 days before the election, and that federal officials had not provided the methodology behind earlier claims California Secretary of State. NPR reported that Los Angeles County officials raised legal and data-security objections NPR. The sources reviewed had not reported a court ruling on either request as of October 19.

Why it matters

Every day of early voting shrinks the pool of voters still left to reach. With Texas now voting in person and national totals climbing daily, official state and county return files become the working record of who has already voted. Near-term request deadlines, such as Georgia's October 23 absentee cutoff, are the next pressure point, and each state's official election office is the authority on its own dates.

The litigation adds uncertainty of a different kind. Federal list-review efforts are being contested on two tracks at once, the D.C. appeal and stay request and the California case, so their legal status could change before November 3. Voters with questions about their registration or ballot status are best served by their official state or county election office. This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

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