Coming soon: new voter registration cards

Those Travis County voters out there who haven’t already lost their voter registration certificates may be interested to learn that their current voter cards are about to expire at the end of December. Those voters who are the sort to have lost their registration cards may be heartened to learn that new blue cards (a distinct change in style from the current orange ones) will soon be arriving in the mail. The new cards will be valid until December 2017, and those requiring corrections – such as address or name changes – can be returned in exchange for a corrected card, which will be mailed back within 30 days. Voters who have moved will receive an address confirmation card if they have provided the post office with a forwarding address. Failure to respond with an updated address (or, alternatively, to update it online) will land the voter’s name in a “suspense file,” according to an announcement from the office of Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant. Although it won’t prevent anyone from voting, says the announcement, it “may cause a delay at the polling place on Election Day.”