County and city records show Sam Williams’ voter registration listed an address outside Eastland on the day candidate applications were due, though other records show he had been living in the city. Williams says he changed his registration in December and that the failure to record it in time was the system’s fault, not his. Whether it was is a question the records cannot yet answer.
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Sam Williams was left off the ballot for the May 2026 Eastland City Commission election over where he was registered to vote, not where he lived. County and city records show that on the day applications were due, his registration still listed an address outside the city limits, even though other records show he had been living inside the city for about a year.
To run for city office in Texas, a candidate has to clear two separate bars: live in the area the seat covers, and be registered to vote there (Election Code Sec. 141.001). The two are judged independently. On residency, the records support Williams. On registration, they show he did not clear the bar in time. Why he didn’t is a question that runs past the city, to the state’s own address-change system.
The rejection
Williams filed on February 13, 2026, the deadline for the May 2 election, and the city rejected his application the same day. In letters dated February 13 and 17, the city secretary wrote that his registration was not inside the area the seat covers and had not been changed to a city address in time. The city was working from registration data the Eastland County Joint Elections Administrator emailed to the city secretary at 12:50 p.m. that day.
What the records show
On February 13, county and city records list Williams’ registered address as 10505 W. Interstate 20, which the county codes as having no City of Eastland district. His registration was changed to 1611 West Main Street, inside the city, but that change did not take effect until March 15, 2026, about a month after the deadline.
That timing comes straight from the Election Code. Under Sec. 15.025, a change to a voter’s registration information “becomes effective as to the change on the 30th day after” the voter submits it. Williams submitted his in-city change on February 13; thirty days later is March 15.
Where the records support Williams
On residency, the record is on his side. His application, sworn February 13, lists the Main Street address and claims ten months of continuous residence, past the six months the law requires. A homestead affidavit he recorded in April 2025 lists the same address. Nothing in the records contradicts it. And under a 2019 change to state law, the city could not have rejected him over residency even if it had wanted to; that question can only be settled in court. The city’s reason was registration, not residence.
The dispute over dates
Williams’ legal argument is that the March 15 date does not count against him. He is right that eligibility turns on when a registration is “effective,” and state law defines a registered voter as one whose registration is effective (Sec. 1.005). He argues that his registration has been effective since 2018 and never lapsed, so he was always eligible; that the “valid” date on the March certificate refers only to the document, not his registration; and that his same-day, in-person fix on February 13 satisfied the requirement.
But it is the Election Code, not the Gazette, that uses “effective” here. Sec. 15.025 says a change to a registration “becomes effective” 30 days after it is submitted, so March 15 is the effective date of his address change in the statute’s own terms, not merely a certificate’s validity date. The same rule applies to the in-person correction he made on February 13: it, too, took effect 30 days later. His 2018 date is separate, marking when his registration first took effect and has continued since, at the out-of-city Interstate 20 address. Being effectively registered is not the same as being effectively registered in the city by the deadline, which the office requires (Sec. 141.001).
The gap between DPS and the county
Williams’ strongest argument is not about the March 15 date at all. It is that he did his part in December, and that whatever failed to record it in time was the system’s fault, not his. He gave the Gazette a Texas driver license issued December 5, 2025, showing the Main Street address, and says he updated his voter registration through the DPS website the same day. A driver’s license is not itself a voter-registration record, so it does not prove a registration change was transmitted, but it does establish that he changed his address with the state before the deadline.
The Election Code lays out how a DPS change is supposed to reach the county, and it is a multi-step trip. A change of address made through DPS also updates a person’s voter registration unless they decline it (Sec. 20.063). DPS transfers the registration data to the Secretary of State (Sec. 20.065, Sec. 20.066), which then informs the county voter registrar; the registrar may verify it received the record (Sec. 20.065). And for a change made at DPS, the date it is submitted counts as the date it reached the registrar for setting the effective date (Sec. 20.063).
Put together: had Williams’ December 5 change completed that trip, his in-city registration would have been effective 30 days later, in early January, before the filing deadline. He would have been eligible.
But the county’s records show his old, out-of-city address on February 13. The change did not complete the trip in time. Where it stalled (whether DPS never sent it, the transfer to the Secretary of State failed, or the county received it and did not enter it) is the question that decides whether the city made a correct call on the record it had, or Williams was wrongly excluded by a failure upstream. Williams says a worker at the county registrar’s office told him that updates from the DPS website can take months to arrive. He contends the county may have overlooked or been slow to record his update, and argues the city should have given him the benefit of the doubt, placed him on the ballot, and left any dispute to a court. The records the Gazette obtained do not resolve where the change stalled.
No ruling on the merits
Williams challenged the rejection, but no court ever decided whether he was eligible. The assigned county judge stepped aside, an outside judge did not take the case until after the election, and then dismissed it as moot, because with the election over, there was nothing left to fix. That kind of dismissal decides nothing on the merits: no court found Williams eligible, and none found the city right.
What comes next
Williams is on the Eastland City Commission’s July 20 agenda. The posted item sets a closed executive session with the city attorney on a matter described as “May 2026 election ineligibility determination.” Williams attributes the meeting to his own questions to the city. The Gazette will report what the commission takes up and what, if anything, it decides.
Sources and methodology
This account is based on records the Gazette obtained directly from the county and the city through public information requests, on Williams’ application, driver license, and his written responses to the Gazette, and on the Texas Election Code. All those documents can be found in our public records folder.
