When you head to the polls later this year, you will no longer have the option for something you've been able to do in past elections.
Specifically, you won't be able to vote straight ticket anymore. The legislature voted to end that in 2017, but it's not going into effect until now. That's too late considering the 2018 results, according to Texas GOP Chairman James Dickey.
"It avoids one day wipeouts of 50-something judges like we saw in Harris County. It would have been a good thing for straight ticket voting to have ended two years earlier," Dickey admitted.
Dickey tells KTRH that the change is not going to impact what they do until the last couple of months of the campaign.
"When the time comes to do voter turnout, that will be the time to remind voters how important it is to go all the way down the ballot and to vote for all of the candidates," Dickey explained.
Had straight ticket voting been eliminated before the 2018 election, Ed Emmett might still be Harris County Judge. Fort Bend County Republicans suffered similar losses in the 2018 vote as well.