Hays County sees major rise in voter registration

HAYS COUNTY — County election offices across Central Texas are seeing larger numbers of voters registering this year.

Hays County, specifically, has the highest percentage of people registered to vote out of all counties in the state of Texas. For the 2016 general election, the Hays County area had about 116,000 registered voters. As of October, the county already has almost 130,000 voters and that number is continuing to rise.

Jennifer Anderson is the Hays County Elections Administrator. She said her staff has never had this much work on their hands before.

"They're bringing in voter registration applications by the thousands," Anderson said. "This is important to a lot of people."

RELATED:

Travis County sees record voter registration, analyst says change is only made at the polls

Texas breaks voter registration record ahead of midterm election

Anderson attributes this uptick to the number of deputy voter registrars -- which are people who can register people to vote. The county has 438 deputies to help people get signed up to vote, compared to only 198 during the March Primary.

Donna Haschke is the Chair for the Hays County Democratic Party and also a deputy voter registrar. She said when you talk to people in Hays County right now, you can tell people are more in the know compared to past election periods.

"There's so much excitement out there for this upcoming election," Haschke said. "I feel it. I hear it. I know it's there."

Sharon Reed Miller is also one of these voting deputies, as she does most of her work going house to house in the San Marcos area.

"There's just tremendously more engagement," Miller said. "They are anxious to vote. Far more anxious than they were in 2016. That's been a big surprise."

Will Conley is running for Hays County Judge as a Republican and Erin Zwiener is running for a state representative seat as a Democrat. Both of these candidates believe this rise is good for everyone.

"The uptick in registration is just a reflection of what's happening in our community," Conley said. "We're just very engaged people and very independent people."

"Folks are realizing they have a choice, and if they don't do anything, no one is going to fix it for them," Zwiener said.