Daily Briefing: Saturday, October 31, 2026

Early voting ended Friday. More than 6.4 million ballots were cast in person through Thursday, The Dallas Morning News reported, against 5.5 million early in-person votes in 2018, the previous record for a non-presidential year. Friday’s votes and mail ballots are not in that figure, and Election Day is Tuesday.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office and Harris County reached an agreement Friday, a day after the state sued County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth over voter ads on Meta. The clerk’s office agreed to remove ads that used “racially discriminatory targeting settings” and not to reactivate those settings during the election period, the Attorney General’s Office said. The county called it an interim agreement and said the settings had already been removed before the deal, KHOU reported.

Washington approved Texas’s appeal for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Individual Assistance after the July storms and flooding, covering 20 counties including Bexar, Kerr, Uvalde and Val Verde, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Friday. A separate appeal for Hazard Mitigation grant funding remains pending.

The El Paso Independent School District gave the Comptroller’s Office records showing how many students enrolled with a Social Security number and how many with a state-approved alternative number, board President Leah Hanany confirmed, El Paso Matters reported through the Texas Tribune. Hanany said the records alone cannot show citizenship. State Rep. Vince Perez said the comptroller’s office told the district not to provide identifying student information and asked what the count has to do with a spending review. Comptroller Don Huffines did not respond to El Paso Matters.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 4,170 people it identified as illegal aliens across Texas from October 19 to 29 in an operation run by its five Texas field offices, the Department of Homeland Security announced. Secretary Markwayne Mullin gave the results Thursday in Dallas and credited Texas law enforcement.

The mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) runs out today, and no renewal had been reported by early Saturday. After Russia vetoed a Security Council draft backed by 11 members on Friday, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz said the Council should work with the Secretary-General on “a process that protects UN personnel and addresses legitimate security and humanitarian concerns,” the U.S. Mission said.

The United Conservative Party revoked the membership of independence lawyer Jeffrey Rath, Premier Danielle Smith confirmed Friday, Global News reported. Cameron Davies resigned as leader of the Republican Party of Alberta, an independence party. Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure urged legislators in a Friday letter to keep the existing electoral map or extend the October 18, 2027 election date, The Globe and Mail reported.

A Caldwell County team from the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) holds a clipboarding event Friday, November 6, at Lockhart City Hall in Lockhart, according to the TNM calendar.