{"id":137593,"date":"2026-01-25T15:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T15:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/137593\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T15:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T15:55:09","slug":"harris-county-polling-locations-closed-sunday-and-monday-because-of-winter-weather-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/137593\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris County polling locations closed Sunday and Monday because of winter weather \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Harris<\/a><\/p>\n

Lucio Vasquez \/ Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth discussing the upcoming election during a press conference on Oct. 20, 2023.<\/p>\n

The early voting period is being reduced by two days in the special election runoff for a Houston congressional seat as the region copes with cold weather and icy precipitation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards and former Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee are competing in the Jan. 31 runoff<\/a> as they seek to fill the vacancy in the 18th Congressional District. Residents there have been without representation in Washington since U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner died in March<\/a> at age 70.<\/p>\n

Early voting started Wednesday<\/a> and was initially scheduled to continue through Tuesday. But the polls are closed Sunday and Monday because of inclement weather, according to the Harris County Clerk\u2019s Office, which operates elections in Texas\u2019 most populous county.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety of voters, elections workers, and staff must come first,\u201d Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said in a Saturday night statement. \u201cThis decision was made in close coordination with state and local emergency management officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: Houston-area school districts announce Monday closures ahead of incoming winter storm<\/a><\/p>\n

There are about 400,000 registered voters in the 18th Congressional District, which includes areas north, south, east and west of downtown Houston. It has been represented by a Black Democrat since the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

About 11,000 voters had cast in-person or mail ballots through Saturday, according to the county clerk\u2019s office. The early voting period is scheduled to conclude Tuesday, when polls will be open from 7 a.m.-7 p.m.<\/p>\n

The Houston area is under an extreme cold warning until noon Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucio Vasquez \/ Houston Public Media Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth discussing the upcoming election during a press…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[10439,7835,4952,2065,288,56,58,57,7094,66,223,287,7838,2279,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-137593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-18th-congressional-district-race","9":"tag-amanda-edwards","10":"tag-christian-menefee","11":"tag-early-voting","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-houston-headlines","15":"tag-houston-news","16":"tag-houston-weather","17":"tag-local","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-special-election","21":"tag-voting","22":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}