SB2753

What SB2753 does

SB2753 connects early in-person voting to Election Day, with no intervening days when regular in-person voting is closed. It also changes where voting happens, how ballots are handled and how results are reported. These changes are not automatically applicable just because the Act took effect September 1, 2025. Sections 32–33 of the final law apply them only to elections ordered on or after the Secretary of State publishes a readiness report in the Texas Register. Rules, procedures and that report are due as soon as practicable, but no later than August 1, 2027.

Do not use this briefing as a current election calendar. The Secretary of State’s implementation explanation, dated August 6, 2025, expressly says it is not the required readiness report. The official November 3, 2026 calendar lists October 19–30 for early in-person voting under the older schedule. That is evidence for that election, not proof of the report’s status for every later election.

Changes for elections covered by the new law

• Dates and hours: the ordinary early-voting start moves from the 17th to the 12th day before Election Day; the end moves from the fourth day before to the day before. May uniform-date elections and their runoffs start on the ninth rather than the 12th day before. The existing tenth-day start for primary and state legislative vacancy runoffs remains. The existing rule moving a Saturday, Sunday or state-holiday starting date to the next regular business day also remains. Once the period starts, voting includes weekends and holidays.
• Daily access: main polling places generally open at least nine hours each day; the existing four-hour exception remains for certain non-county elections covering fewer than 1,000 registered voters. For primaries, general elections for state and county officers, and special elections ordered by the governor, the main site must open at least 12 consecutive hours on each of the last four days, except at least nine consecutive hours on Sunday. The statutory 6 a.m.–10 p.m. limits remain where applicable. Branch-site rules differ; this is not a claim that every location must use identical hours.
• Same locations: every main, permanent-branch and temporary-branch early-voting site must also be an Election Day polling place. Additional Election Day-only sites remain possible. The Act does not turn every county into a countywide-voting county.
• Counting and reporting: early in-person and Election Day votes are combined as in-person results, separate from mail results. Returns and canvasses add polling-location totals alongside precinct totals. County, city and school-district website reports add location totals; the county subsection retains wording referring to votes by personal appearance or mail, while the city/school-district subsection expressly changes that item to mail votes. The Act should not be paraphrased as making those two subsections identical.
• Ballots and equipment: first-day machine-zero and empty-box checks align with the first day a site is used. Automatically counted early ballots travel with that site’s Election Day ballots after polls close; manually counted early ballots go to the early voting ballot board separately. The law changes key custody and overnight handling, and removes the ban on using an early-voting electronic machine again on Election Day. It does not repeal ballot-security requirements. Mail-ballot counting for counties of at least 100,000 people, and elections conducted jointly or under contract with them, may begin on the fourth day before Election Day; the general rule remains Election Day opening. This is not permission to publish results early.
• Other voter procedures: the law removes the after-early-voting restriction from the specified in-person request to cancel a mail-ballot application. For eligible late ballots because of sickness or disability, it removes the requirement to wait until early voting ends, while retaining the 5 p.m. Election Day application cutoff. It repeals the separate late-voting procedure for absence caused by a relative’s death and the special post-early-voting office-hours provision for presidential ballots—not all presidential-ballot eligibility.
• Precincts and administration: new combination authority addresses redistricting-created precincts with fewer than 3,000 registered voters, subject to the ordinary maximum precinct size. A separate suitable-building shortage route applies in non-countywide counties, with a 10,000-voter cap. Existing protections against diluting or discouraging protected groups’ participation remain. Combined precincts use one set of presiding judges. The Act also removes the numerical selection limit in the countywide polling-place program, updates weekend notices, voter-registrar hours and small-county funding cross-references, and repeals superseded weekend and ballot-delivery provisions.

Source: final law, sections 1–34; Secretary of State’s implementation explanation. The official history records the governor’s June 22, 2025 signature.