Registration closes Oct. 5 for Nov. 3 election

By GvilleTX Newsroom

Cooke County residents who want to vote in the Nov. 3, 2026, general election must register by Monday, Oct. 5, according to the Texas secretary of state. The same deadline applies next door in Grayson County.

Applications sent by mail must be postmarked by Oct. 5. In a Sept. 28 notice, the secretary of state's office told voters to take the envelope to a postal counter and ask the clerk to stamp it by hand.

The deadline falls on a Monday because of the weekend. State law closes registration 30 days before Election Day. This year that day is Sunday, Oct. 4, so the state calendar moves the deadline to the next day. A Saturday shifts the start of early voting in the same way. Early voting opens Monday, Oct. 19, exactly two weeks after registration closes, and runs through Oct. 30.

Voters who qualify to vote by mail have a separate deadline. Election officials must receive the application for a mail ballot by Oct. 23, according to the state calendar.

Secretary of state records put turnout at about 46% of registered Texans in the 2022 race for governor. In the 2024 presidential election, about 61% voted.

In separate business, Grayson County commissioners put a hospital funding item on their agenda. The item would keep the county's Local Provider Participation Fund assessment at 6% of each hospital's net patient revenue. The agenda shows that commissioners scheduled the item. It does not show on its own whether the proposal passed.

Under the program, hospitals pay an assessment into a county fund. The county then sends that money to the state to draw federal Medicaid matching dollars, according to a June 2025 letter from Texoma Medical Center. The 2017 state law that authorized the fund caps each hospital's assessment at 6%. The same law bars hospitals from adding the charge to a patient's bill. That year, supporters told lawmakers that Grayson had no county hospital to pay for those transfers, according to the Texas House Research Organization.

The county's 2026 proposal packet includes support letters from AHS Sherman Medical Center, Baylor Scott & White Surgical Hospital at Sherman and Texoma Medical Center. It also includes letters from the Carrus Behavioral, Rehabilitation and Specialty hospitals, dated Aug. 17.

Commissioners' records show that Health Department Director Amanda Ortez asked for the increase to 6% that the court approved on July 1, 2025. That record does not show her position this year.