How to run for local office in Texas

Texas Secretary of State, Elections Division The Elections Division publishes the election law calendars for each uniform election date, the Candidate's Guide for Local Political Subdivisions, the candidate application forms, and sells the statewide voter registration file. It does not accept local candidate filings or local campaign finance reports; you file those with your city secretary, school board secretary, or county clerk. The division runs a candidate and election-law help line at 1-800-252-VOTE (8683).

Voter registration is run by the county voter registrar in each of the 254 counties (the county tax assessor-collector, or a county elections administrator where the commissioners court has created that office). Cities, school districts, and special districts are legally their own election authorities, with the city secretary or district secretary as election officer, but most contract with the county elections office to run their May and November elections under a joint election agreement. Fort Bend County, for example, has an Elections Administrator who runs registration, early voting, election day, and the voter rolls for the county and for the cities and school districts that contract with it. Ask your city secretary who the early voting clerk is for your election; that office holds the daily early-voting rosters.

The voter file is the list of every registered voter, with the fields a campaign needs to target: address, party where the state records it, and vote history. In Texas it comes from Texas Secretary of State, Elections Division (statewide file); county voter registrars (county files).

Access

Public record — anyone can obtain it

Cost

$75 deposit, then a tiered extract rate on the SOS form (rev. 11/2016, still the posted form as of 2026-09-09): $93.75 plus $0.0005 per voter for 1 to 124,999 voters; $156.25 plus $0.000375 per voter for 125,000 to 249,999; $203.13 plus $0.00025 per voter for 250,000 to 499,999; $265.63 plus $0.000125 per voter for 500,000 to 999,999; $328.13 plus $0.0000625 per voter above 1,000,000. CD-ROM or DVD is $11 each; FTP delivery is available. Custom extracts beyond the form's options are quoted separately under Government Code 552.231.

Format

Zipped fixed-width text file, one row per voter (685-character record). A separate voting-history file has one row per voter per election with election date, type (general, primary, runoff, special, local), party, and voting method (early in person, election day, mail ballot accepted or rejected, provisional).

Vote history

Included

Phone numbers

Not included

Updated

Extracted from the state master voter file when you order. The Secretary of State must furnish it within 15 days of the request (Election Code 18.066). Reorder to refresh; there is no subscription.

Who can get it: Anyone. You submit the Voter Registration Public Information Request Form with a $75 deposit and a notarized affidavit that you will not use the data to advertise or promote commercial products or services. Using it for commercial advertising is a Class A misdemeanor (Election Code 18.067).

Permitted use: Political, governmental, journalistic, and research use. Commercial advertising or promotion is prohibited (Election Code 18.067). The file contains no driver's license or Social Security numbers.

County option: Yes, and for a city or school race it is usually the practical route. County voter registrars furnish their own county file under Election Code chapter 18. Travis County posts its full registered-voter list and a 2004-to-present election-history file as free CSV and Excel downloads. Fort Bend County and most other counties fill requests through a voter registration data request form to the elections office. Ask for the file with voting history and precinct, and confirm the fee before you order.

• Fields in the statewide file: county code, precinct, VUID (the statewide voter ID), name and former name, suffix, gender, date of birth, full residence address parsed into house number, street, unit, city and ZIP, mailing address, effective date of registration, status code (V active, S suspense, C cancelled), and a Hispanic surname flag.
• You can order active, suspense, and cancelled voters separately; limit to a county, precinct, or district; and filter to voters who voted in specific elections you list. A suspense voter has a mailed address-confirmation notice outstanding but is still eligible to vote.
• Precinct on the state file is the county voting precinct. City council districts and school board single-member districts are not on the state file; ask the county or your city secretary for the district-to-precinct map.

You get on the ballot by filing an Application for a Place on the City/School/Other Political Subdivision Ballot with the filing authority during a fixed window that ends 78 days before election day. Most cities and school districts charge no fee and require no petition. Eligibility for most local offices is set by Election Code 141.001 (age, U.S. citizenship, residency in Texas and in the district for set periods before the filing deadline, and voter registration); home-rule charters and some district statutes add their own residency periods, so read the SOS Candidate's Guide and your charter. County offices are partisan and go through the March primary instead.

File with

City offices: the city secretary (Election Code 143.006). School districts: the secretary of the board of trustees or a person the board designates (Election Code 144.004). Water, hospital, library, and emergency services districts: the board secretary or presiding officer (144.004). Junior college districts: the board secretary (Education Code 130.082). County and precinct offices: the county chair (or secretary) of your party's county executive committee for the March primary (Election Code 172.022); independent candidates follow the separate procedure in Election Code chapter 142.

Filing fee

Most local political subdivisions charge no filing fee (SOS Candidate's Guide for Local Political Subdivisions). A home-rule city may set a fee by charter, but it must also offer an alternative such as a petition (Election Code 143.005). Check your city charter or ask the city secretary.

Petition

Most cities and school districts require no petition. Where a home-rule charter requires signatures in place of or in addition to a fee, the charter sets the number (Election Code 143.005). Signers must be registered voters of the city or district, and the SOS petition form and signature rules in Election Code chapter 141, subchapter C apply.

Partisan?

City, school district, and special district offices are nonpartisan; no party label appears on the ballot. County offices (county judge, commissioner, clerk, sheriff, tax assessor-collector, constable, justice of the peace) and state legislative seats are partisan and are nominated in the March primary of even-numbered years.

Filing window: The filing period opens on the 30th day before the filing deadline and closes at 5 p.m. on the 78th day before election day for cities (Election Code 143.007), school districts and other political subdivisions (Election Code 144.005; Education Code 11.055). Write-in declarations are due by 5 p.m. on the 74th day. If a deadline lands on a weekend or holiday it moves to the next business day (Election Code 1.006). The Secretary of State publishes the computed dates in its Election Law Calendar advisory for each uniform election date.

• The governing body must order the election by the 78th day before election day, the same day the filing window closes (Election Code 3.005), and must post a notice of the filing deadline in its offices at least 30 days before the first day to file (Election Code 141.040).
• The SOS calendar for the May 2, 2026 election listed the filing window as January 14 to February 13, 2026 and for November 3, 2026 as July 18 to August 17, 2026; the 2027 dates above apply the same statutory offsets to the 2027 uniform dates.

State-level campaign finance in Texas is overseen by Texas Ethics Commission through None statewide for local filers. The TEC electronic filing application is for state and district filers; local candidates file with the local filing authority on paper or using the TEC report-generating software, and some cities (Houston, Austin) and large school districts run their own portals..

Where local candidates file: Local candidates do not file with the Texas Ethics Commission. Before you accept a dollar or spend a dollar, you file Form CTA (Appointment of a Campaign Treasurer by a Candidate) with your local filing authority: the city secretary for city offices, the secretary of the board (or the person the board designates) for school districts and other districts, and the county clerk or elections administrator for county and precinct offices (TEC local filer guide, Election Code chapter 252). Your contribution and expenditure reports (Form C/OH) go to that same office. School districts with more than 15,000 students located wholly or partly in a city of more than 500,000 must post trustee candidates' reports on the district website (Election Code 254.04011); most other local filing authorities keep paper files you inspect in person.

Contribution limits: Texas sets no contribution limits for city council, school board, county, or legislative candidates; only judicial candidates have state limits. What applies to everyone: no contributions from corporations or labor organizations (Election Code 253.091 and following), and no cash contribution over $100 from one contributor. Some home-rule cities set their own limits by charter or ordinance. Austin: $500 per contributor per election for mayor and council (City Charter Art. III, Sec. 8, indexed to CPI from a $300 base; the figure posted for the November 2026 election), an aggregate cap on contributions from outside Austin ZIP codes of $50,000 per election and $33,000 per runoff, and fundraising only in the 180 days before the election. Houston: $5,000 from an individual and $10,000 from a political committee per contribution cycle (Code of Ordinances ch. 18, art. IV, sec. 18-38). Check your city charter before you raise money.

Reporting: Semiannual reports due January 15 and July 15 every year while you have a treasurer appointment on file. If you have an opponent on the ballot, pre-election reports are due 30 days and 8 days before the election, plus a runoff report 8 days before a runoff; each must be received, not postmarked, by the filing authority. You can elect modified reporting and skip the pre-election reports if you will neither raise nor spend more than $1,140 for the election (the 2026 threshold under 1 TAC 18.31, indexed each January). Contributions over $110 must be itemized with the contributor's name and address (2026 threshold).

• The campaign treasurer appointment is required even if you never intend to raise or spend money; without it you cannot accept a contribution or make an expenditure, including paying your own filing fee.
• Political advertising, including push cards, signs, and social media, must carry the political advertising disclosure statement naming who paid for it (Election Code chapter 255); the TEC local guide covers the exact wording.

In person, with excuse-required absentee voting. Texans vote in person, either during early voting or on election day, and show one of the accepted photo IDs at the polls. Mail ballots are available only to voters who are 65 or older, have a disability, will be out of the county during early voting and on election day, are confined in jail, are civilly committed, or expect to give birth within three weeks of election day. In-person early voting, not mail, is where most of the pre-election-day votes come from, which is why the daily early-voting rosters matter so much.

Early voting

In person, beginning on the 17th day before election day (or the next Monday if that falls on a weekend) and ending on the 4th day before, for November elections; for May uniform-date elections it runs from the 12th day through the 4th day (Election Code 85.001). For the May 1, 2027 election that is April 19 to 27, 2027. Counties that use countywide polling let you vote at any early voting site in the county; in a city-run election you vote at the city's early voting locations. Hours are set by the early voting clerk within Election Code 85.005 and posted in the election order.

Mail ballots

Excuse required (65 or older, disability, expected absence from the county, confinement in jail, civil commitment, or expected childbirth). Apply to the early voting clerk of the entity holding the election; the application must be received by the 11th day before election day (Election Code 84.007). Voters 65 or older or with a disability can file one annual application covering every election that year. The application and the ballot carrier envelope must carry your Texas driver's license, personal ID, or election certificate number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number. Return the marked ballot by mail to the early voting clerk, or deliver it in person on election day with photo ID while the polls are open.

Registration deadline

30 days before election day (Election Code 13.143): April 1, 2027 for the May 1, 2027 election and October 4, 2027 for the November 2, 2027 election. New registrations go to the county voter registrar on a paper application (the SOS online form generates one to print and mail), postmarked by the deadline; voters who move or change their name can update online through Texas.gov.

Same-day registration

No

Knowing who has already voted: The early voting clerk must keep a roster of every person who votes early in person and a roster of every person sent a mail ballot, with at minimum the voter's name, VUID, and precinct, update it daily, and make in-person entries available by 11 a.m. the next day and mail-ballot returns by 11 a.m. the day after the ballot is received (Election Code 87.121). When the county clerk or elections administrator is the early voting clerk, including by contract or joint election agreement, the county must post the rosters on its website; otherwise the city or district posts them on its own site. The Secretary of State recommends posting by 11 a.m. each day, and for primaries and the November even-year general it republishes the county rosters on its own site in downloadable form. Fort Bend County, for example, posts an in-person early voting roster (EV) and a ballot-by-mail roster (BBM) as Excel files on its Early Voting Statistics page during each election. Match the roster's VUID against your voter file each morning to pull voters who have already voted off your walk lists and phone lists.

Texas has 254 counties, each run by a commissioners court presided over by the county judge, with the sheriff, county clerk, district clerk, tax assessor-collector, treasurer, justices of the peace, and constables elected separately in partisan elections. More than 1,200 incorporated cities: a city over 5,000 population can adopt a home-rule charter (Texas Constitution art. XI, sec. 5) that sets its own council structure, terms, districts, filing fees, and sometimes contribution limits; smaller cities are general-law cities governed by the Local Government Code. Public schools are run by 1,024 independent school districts, each with an elected board of trustees, separate from city and county government; there are also about 50 community college districts with elected boards. Thousands of special purpose districts (municipal utility districts, emergency services districts, hospital districts, water districts) have elected boards and hold their own elections, usually in May.

• City council member
• Mayor
• School district trustee (ISD)
• Community college trustee
• County commissioner
• County judge
• Justice of the peace
• Constable
• County clerk
• Tax assessor-collector
• Sheriff
• Municipal utility district director
• Emergency services district commissioner
• Hospital district director
• State representative

When local elections happen: Cities, school districts, and special districts must hold their regular elections on a uniform election date, either the first Saturday in May or the November general election date, as chosen by the governing body (Election Code 41.001); many choose May of odd-numbered years, and a growing number, including Austin and Houston, hold council elections in November. Runoffs for May elections are typically held in June. County and state offices are elected in November of even-numbered years with party primaries on the first Tuesday in March and primary runoffs in late May. Statewide constitutional amendments and many bond elections go on the November odd-year date, so a November 2027 school board race shares the ballot with state propositions.

• The May 2, 2026 SOS calendar noted that early voting in a political subdivision's election must be conducted at the main early voting location on each weekday of the period that is not a state holiday, with at least the hours set in Election Code 85.005; check the election order for extended hours and branch locations.

Culper's licensed voter data currently covers Fort Bend County. Candidates elsewhere in Texas upload the statewide file from the Secretary of State described above and get the same tools: search and lists, plain-English queries, texting and email, block walking, and volunteer coordination. Online donation processing is in development; ask about timing on the onboarding call.

Facts on this page were checked against the official sources below on September 9, 2026. Rules change between cycles; when a number here and the agency disagree, the agency is right.

1. 1.Texas SOS, Candidacy Filing for Local Political Subdivisions (78th-day deadline, filing officers, fees and petitions)
2. 2.Texas SOS, Filing as a Candidate in a Local General Election (2026 filing windows, filing authorities)
3. 3.Texas SOS, Election Advisory 2026-02, May 2, 2026 Election Law Calendar (filing window, registration, early voting, rosters)
4. 4.Texas SOS, Election Advisory 2026-21, November 3, 2026 Election Law Calendar (November filing window, early voting, rosters)
5. 5.Texas SOS, Important Election Dates (November 2026 registration, early voting, filing deadlines)
6. 6.Texas SOS, Voter Registration Public Information Request Form (statewide voter file deposit, rate schedule, record layout, affidavit)
7. 7.Travis County Tax Office, Voter Data Files (free county voter list and election history downloads)
8. 8.Fort Bend County Elections, Early Voting Statistics (daily EV and BBM rosters)
9. 9.Texas Ethics Commission, Campaign Finance Guide for Candidates and Officeholders Who File With Local Filing Authorities
10. 10.Texas Ethics Commission, FAQ for Candidates (no contribution limits for most offices, local filing, cash limit)
11. 11.Texas Ethics Commission, Guide to a Local Filing Authority's Duties (school district internet posting, 254.04011)
12. 12.Texas Ethics Commission, Filing Reports for Local Filers
13. 13.Texas Ethics Commission, adopted rule 1 TAC 18.31, reporting thresholds effective January 1, 2026
14. 14.City of Austin, November 2026 Election (contribution limit per contributor, out-of-city aggregate)
15. 15.City of Austin Charter, Art. III Sec. 8, Limits on Campaign Contributions and Expenditures
16. 16.City of Houston, Campaign Finance Reports FAQ (sec. 18-38 contribution limits, e-filing)
17. 17.VoteTexas.gov, Early Voting In Person (17th day and 12th day rules)
18. 18.VoteTexas.gov, Voting by Mail (eligibility, 11th-day application deadline, annual application)
19. 19.VoteTexas.gov, Register to Vote (30-day deadline, online address updates)
20. 20.Texas Comptroller, Counties (254 counties)
21. 21.Texas Comptroller, Cities (more than 1,200 incorporated cities)
22. 22.Texas Comptroller, Public Education (1,024 school districts, community college districts)
23. 23.Texas Election Code chapter 41, Election Dates (uniform election dates)
24. 24.Texas Election Code chapter 87, Processing Early Voting Results (Sec. 87.121 early voting rosters)