About the 2025 Re-Precincting
Texas Election Code Chapter 42 requires that counties review their election precincts in odd years to determine if they are in compliance with Sections 42.005, 42.006, and 42.007, which describe the jurisdictional and population requirements for county election precincts. Harris County bi-annually completes this process of “re-precincting” with the last review and compliance changes being approved by Commissioners Court on May 8, 2025.
While re-precincting would not typically be required again until Spring 2027, the State of Texas 89th Legislature, 2nd Called Session enacted H.B. 4 (PlanC2333), a congressional redistricting plan for primary and general elections beginning in 2026. Due to the redistricting plan, 66 election precincts were no longer in compliance with Texas Election Code §42.005, requiring a second round of re-precincting in 2025.
On November 18, 2025, a federal court ruled that Texas likely engaged in an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in redrawing the State’s congressional districts and ordered Texas to revert to the congressional-district maps passed in 2021 for the 2026 elections. If that ruling stands, and the elections proceed under the 2021 congressional district lines, no further steps toward changing election precinct boundaries shall be taken, and the election precinct boundaries will remain as were approved in May 2025. If, however, the November 18th ruling is stayed or overturned by the United States Supreme Court, such that the 2026 elections become set to proceed under the congressional district lines drawn in 2025, then the new boundaries for the election precincts (as described below) will go into effect to ensure compliance with all relevant laws.
Per the Code, election precincts are required to be contiguous and (in descending priority):
- Contained entirely within one each of the following jurisdictions:
- County Commissioner precinct
- Justice precinct
- Congressional district
- State Representative district
- State Senatorial district
- State Board of Education district
- With a population between 100 – 5000 registered voters (unless the above requirements are otherwise unable to be met)
- Contained entirely within either incorporated or unincorporated territory (unless the above requirements are otherwise unable to be met)
Re-precincting is different from re-districting in that the boundaries for elected officials remain the same. Only “election precinct” boundaries are adjusted, so there are no changes to any voters’ ballots in terms of who they can vote for, or where they can vote. The changes voters may see on their ballots would be due to re-districting, rather than re-precincting itself.
The proposed boundary adjustments appeared twice on the Commissioners Court Agenda:
- Thursday, November 13, 2025: an item to notice the proposed changes and set a date for a public hearing
- Thursday, November 20, 2025: the Public Hearing, and an item to approve/adopt the proposed changes, IF the November 18th ruling is stayed or overturned by the United States Supreme Court, such that the 2026 elections become set to proceed under the congressional district lines drawn in 2025
If you have questions about this project and the below election precinct boundary proposals, please contact:
Traci Buttram
Manager of Operations
Office of County Administration
[email protected]
Please Note: Registered voter population data as of 09/02/2025. Estimates for the registered voter populations of proposed election precincts may be updated based on new voter registrations/processing.