Clear skies across Texas ushered voters to the polls for a historic Election Day on Tuesday, even as a political storm hovers at the close of an anxious, divisive presidential election unlike any other.
Karen Brooks Harper
Karen Brooks Harper reported on the state budget and health and human services from 2020 to 2024. An alumna of the Missouri School of Journalism, Karen arrived in Texas in 1995 to join the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, spent several years in Laredo and Mexico covering immigration and the drug war for Knight-Ridder newspapers, and has covered Texas politics for more than two decades for news organizations including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Morning News and Reuters.
Posted in
Texas 2020 Elections
Miles to go before they vote: Without absentee ballots, displaced Texans cross the country to vote at home
Worried because their absentee ballots never arrived, two American University students rented a Volkswagen Golf and drove 30 hours across half a dozen states to cast their votes in Texas this week.
Posted in
Texas 2020 Elections
Worried your mail-in ballot still hasn’t arrived? Here’s how to be sure your vote counts
If you’re concerned that you haven’t received your mail-in ballot, there are ways to be counted by showing up in person. Officials say ballots are still being sent out with less than a week before Election Day.
Posted in
Texas 2020 Elections
Texas’ ability to run accessible, efficient elections is being tested this year. Will Bexar County flunk?
While other large urban counties have aggressively pushed to expand voting options amid the pandemic, Bexar County is pursuing a more modest approach. Some critics fear the result will be an Election Day logjam disenfranchising voters of color in San Antonio.
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Texas 2020 Elections
Texas can reject mail-in ballots over mismatched signatures without giving voters a chance to appeal, court rules
A federal judge had ordered the state to give voters a chance to resolve signature questions in time for their ballots to be counted. Now that won’t happen unless counties do it voluntarily.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Coronavirus restrictions and remote learning may hamper college student voter turnout
Campaigns, political organizations and students at schools across Texas say they’re worried and frustrated that pandemic health restrictions are stymying efforts to register and turn out students to vote.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Balancing higher health risks and spotty internet, reopening college in the Rio Grande Valley is a challenge
At UT-Rio Grande Valley, administrators spent a tense summer preparing for the fall semester while local coronavirus rates spiked, the area spiraled into further economic depression and debate raged across the nation about how to safely send college students back to school.
Posted in
Coronavirus in Texas
Texas universities blame off-campus parties for rising COVID-19 cases, but few are disciplining students
Schools, desperate to keep their doors open but worried about health risks to their students, are being put in the uncomfortable position of having to govern young adult behavior that is mostly happening off university property.
