North Texas sees big increase in voter registration numbers

Tuesday is the last day to register to vote if you want to cast a ballot in the November elections, and the rush is on.

Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton Counties have all seen a big increase in registered voters compared to the midterm elections four years ago.

Heider Garcia is the Tarrant County election administrator. He says voter registration in the county has grown more than 10 percent since the midterm 4 years ago with 7,000 new voters in September alone.

"It's all hands on deck here,” he said. “People are excited. And the more, the better!"

Dallas County is reporting even bigger growth with potentially 200,000 more voters this year than in 2014

"We're really having a surge,” said Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippens-Poole. “These are like record numbers. They're more than what we saw during the presidential election year."

Dallas County has extended its hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They’ve also hired 20 additional staffers and added a table on the first floor for overflow walk-ins.

"We were having so many people come upstairs and waiting on the elevator, we decided to put a table there,” Pippens-Poole said.

Some are voters who have moved. Others haven't voted in years. There are also a lot of first-timers and a lot of motivated young people.

Both Dallas and Denton County administrators point to big numbers around universities and colleges.

Late last month, the Texas secretary of state had already reported a record 15.6 million registered voters, which was up 11 percent from the midterms four years ago. It is easily outpacing overall population growth in Texas with the closing surge yet to be counted.

Tuesday is the final day to register. If you are mailing it in, make sure it's postmarked by October 9.