Cooke County early voting adds weekend, evening hours at Gainesville annex through Oct. 30

Cooke County voters who work through the daylight hours still have a Saturday, a Sunday and five 12-hour weekdays to cast an early ballot at the Courthouse Annex in Gainesville. In-person early voting for the Nov. 3 general election ends there Oct. 30, according to the county's posted schedule.

Ballots have been coming in since opening day. The county has published an in-person roster of voters who cast ballots on Oct. 19.

The county elections page posts a countywide sample ballot, along with separate ones for City of Gainesville precincts 1C, 2 and 4C and Valley View ISD precincts 10, 11 and 12. Gainesville's ballot asks whether to limit the mayor and councilmembers to four consecutive terms in each office (Proposition B) and whether the city council, rather than voters, should choose the municipal judge (Proposition E). In Valley View, Proposition A asks voters to ratify a school tax rate that the district ballot says would raise maintenance-and-operations revenue by about 13.5% over the prior year.

The annex hours, per the county schedule:

| Dates | Annex hours |

| --- | --- |

| Mon.–Fri., Oct. 19–23 | 8 a.m.–5 p.m. |

| Saturday, Oct. 24 | 7 a.m.–7 p.m. |

| Sunday, Oct. 25 | 9 a.m.–3 p.m. |

| Mon.–Fri., Oct. 26–30 | 7 a.m.–7 p.m. |

The annex is at 112 South Dixon Street. Anyone physically unable to go inside can use the reserved curbside space behind the building and call or text the number on its sign, according to county instructions. The Cooke County Clerk's Elections Division takes questions at 940-668-5437. Residents can check their status through the secretary of state's "Am I Registered?" portal, and the secretary of state's guidance says a "suspense" status does not by itself bar a voter. Registration closed Oct. 5. Mail-ballot applications must be received by Oct. 23; a postmark by that date is not enough, the state calendar says.

The schedule follows House Bill 1217, which took effect Sept. 1, 2023. According to a secretary of state advisory, the law applied one set of extended early-voting rules to every Texas county regardless of population and made weekend voting mandatory in general elections for state and county officers. The curbside space reflects Senate Bill 477, a 2023 law requiring one during early voting and on Election Day.

The county's 2022 plan used the same building but listed weekday voting only, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Oct. 24 through Nov. 4.

The long hours apply to a county's main early-voting site. Montague County lists four early-voting locations, and only its Montague Annex keeps the extended weekend and final-week hours. Sites in Bowie, Nocona and Saint Jo list weekday hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Early voting carried a large share here in 2022. Cooke County's official results record 7,286 early ballots among 15,391 cast, about 47%. Nationally, the Census Bureau estimated that 9.9 million of 37.2 million registered nonvoters in the 2022 midterms cited being too busy or having a conflicting schedule, the most common reason given.