Register With the Harris County Voter Registrar Before the Deadline

Newcomers usually do a double take at this one: the same office that registers your car and collects your property taxes, the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector, is also the county's Voter Registrar. To vote in a given election, your registration has to be on file at least 30 days ahead of it, so a signup the week of an election misses that ballot and counts toward the next one.

Moving trips up more people than anything else. Change your name, or move even a few blocks to a new address inside Harris County, and you have to send in a completed, signed application to update the record. Skip it and you may show up on election day to find your registration pointing at the old house.

Forms come in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese. The Tax Office's voter page lets you check whether your registration is current, which is worth doing well before election season rather than the night before.