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High school students Sawyer Brockman, left, and Jack Skilling volunteer at a voter registration table for the presidential primary election at Windham High School in Windham, New Hampshire on Jan. 23, 2024. Texas high schools are required to help students register to vote.<\/p>\n
Michael Dwyer\/AP<\/p>\n
An obscure state law requires Texas high schools to give\u00a0eligible students an opportunity to register to vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n But voting-rights groups say many schools don\u2019t bother. New data from a national nonprofit advocacy group shows Texas and\u00a0Bexar County lag behind much of the country in the percentage of\u00a018-year-olds registered to vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Research published Aug. 11<\/a> by The Civics Center, which trains students and educators to run nonpartisan high school voter registration drives, found only 29% of roughly 420,000 18-year-old Texans\u00a0are registered to vote\u00a0\u2014 down 13 percentage points from 2022 and below the national average of 42%.<\/p>\n \u201cTexas is one of very few states that declined,\u201d said Laura Brill, founder and CEO of the nonprofit\u00a0that was created in 2018 and is based in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n It’s a timely issue, with an Oct. 5 registration deadline looming for the Nov. 3 midterm and local elections in Texas.<\/p>\n How does Bexar County compare?<\/p>\n The group published an\u00a0online map of Texas<\/a> showing voter-registration rates of 18-year-olds by county. While rural counties such as\u00a0Pecos, Andrews and Lavaca had rates above\u00a090%, only 35% of\u00a0Bexar County residents who are 18 were registered as of May 5. Other urban counties also posted rates below the national average with Dallas County at 27%, Harris County at 38% and Travis and Tarrant counties at 39%.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cTexas is one of the most difficult states in the country in which to register to vote,\u201d leaving an onus on schools and local advocates to guide teens through the process, Brill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aside from being one of seven states without online voter registration, Texas doesn\u2019t let teens apply to vote until they\u2019re 17 years and 10 months old. Teens in other states can pre-register at 16, then begin voting when they\u2019re 18. Texas also doesn\u2019t have automatic voter registration as\u00a0other states\u00a0do for teens applying for driver\u2019s licenses. In another requirement that most other states don’t have, Texas\u00a0mandates deputy voter registrars take a test through their county,\u00a0Brill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite those administrative hurdles, some school systems, including the Alamo Heights, Boerne, Comal and Medina Valley independent school districts have 18-year-old registration rates above 70%, while others are below 30%, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Secretary of State\u2019s Office\u00a0provides instructions online<\/a> for an aspiring voter to fill out a\u00a0voter registration form to be printed and sent by mail. But Brill said many teens don\u2019t have a printer and aren\u2019t inclined to use the mail.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n What does Texas law require regarding high school voter registration? \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n