Overwhelmed with your long ballot? League of Women Voters guide is out

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- As municipalities work to get more on the ballot concurrent with the presidential election to improve voter turnout, your ballot is quite long. With less than a month away from the election, the time to educate yourself is now.

"There's a lot of information out there, but we have to be active in seeking it," said Brian Smith, a political science professor at St. Edward's University. "Especially for local races, because all the local races are going to impact our pocketbook a lot more than the national races."

The League of Women Voters published its Voters Guide for the Nov. 5, 2024 election. There are printable PDF versions in English and Spanish available online. And you can look more specifically at your ballot using your address here.

What's on your ballot?

Texans not only need to select a president and vice president but there's also a hugely significant senate race going on between Sen. Ted Cruz and Colin Allred.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett is also facing challengers for his seat in the House of Representatives, and Texans will vote for a Texas Railroad Commissioner (who regulates the oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquified petroleum gas industry and surface coal and uranium mining).

Locally, there's a Travis County District Attorney race, Austinites are deciding who should serve as Austin's mayor, some Austin residents have to pick a city council member, there are ACC board of trustee seats up for grabs, plus two local tax proposals on the ballot: Travis County Proposition A -- a proposed affordable childcare tax -- and Austin ISD Proposition A which would help reduce the district's multi-million dollar budget deficit.

For ease of research, there are also quite a few elected roles that are already decided. For example, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez is on the ballot unopposed, Travis County Commissioner Ann Howard will retain her seat and Celia Israel is running unopposed for Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector.