Daily Briefing: Friday, October 30, 2026

Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster in El Paso County after heavy rain and flash flooding from a storm that began October 23, his office announced Thursday. The Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) is collecting damage reports through an online survey, which officials use to determine whether the county meets federal requirements for disaster assistance.

Early voting ends today, and Election Day is November 3. More than 6 million Texans had voted by Wednesday, nearly a third of the state’s 19 million registered voters, according to Secretary of State early voting rosters.

The Harris County Clerk’s Office removed audience tags from its “Plan. Check. Vote!” ads on Meta after the Texas Attorney General’s Office sued Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth and her communications director on Thursday, the Texas Tribune reported. The suit alleges the ads targeted Black, Latino and Asian voters while excluding “European ethnicities.” Hudspeth said the tags came off “to avoid unnecessary distractions.” Attorney General Ken Paxton recused himself from the case, his office said.

The challengers to federal border barrier construction in the Big Bend region, led by the Friends of the Ruidosa Church, filed their response at the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, the docket in No. 26A560 shows. Washington has asked the Court to lift the October 2 order that halted the work. Justice Samuel Alito requested the response, and the Court had not acted as of the latest docket entries.

A federal jury in Fort Worth convicted an Indian national of voting in the 2024 general election and of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas announced. Prosecutors said he checked the citizenship box on a Texas driver license application in Tarrant County in August 2024 and voted in Arlington that November. Sentencing is set for February 11, 2027.

Comptroller Don Huffines issued an executive order barring any entity with financial participation by a convicted human trafficking offender from his agency’s contracts and grants, his office announced Thursday. Contractors and grantees must certify their eligibility under Texas Government Code Section 2155.0061. Huffines also opened a webpage tracking Texas Education Freedom Accounts spending, with a full dashboard planned in the coming weeks.

The mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) expires Saturday. A draft resolution Washington circulated to the Security Council on October 22 would rename the mission to remove the word referendum and affirm that “genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution,” PassBlue reported. The Polisario Front has threatened to quit the peace process if the text passes.

Premier Danielle Smith said text messages she sent to independence lawyer Jeffrey Rath in June 2025 were meant to guide him through changing citizen initiative rules, the Edmonton Journal reported. Rath posted the exchange online Tuesday. Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi raised the exchange in question period.