Original reporting provided by Alex Samuels, reporter at The Texas Tribune. Supplemental reporting provided by Iain Oldman, reporter at Community Impact Newspaper. With less than a month until the March 6 primary elections, races across the ballot are starting to heat up. This year, Texas has the earliest primaries in the country. “It’s just another way for voters to get acclimated with their candidates before the midterm election,” Williamson County Elections Administrator Christopher Davis said. “The voice that they have in the March primary elections is just as important as the voice they have in November.” Even with the attention the state of Texas has recently garnered due to contentious voter ID laws, Davis said Williamson County has seen no evidence of malicious voter fraud during his tenure. “There have been folks that have mistakenly attempted to vote twice, but nothing where there have been willful violations,” Davis said. If a voter does not possess at the polling location what election officials call Type A identification—a state-issued driver’s license, passport or military ID, among others—they still have the opportunity to vote. “We tell our poll workers to absolutely not turn away a voter,” Davis said. “The voter has options. We never, ever turn away voters.” This election cycle has an unusually high number of prominent open races, with eight Texans in the U.S. House opting not to run for re-election, and more than a dozen in the Texas Legislature doing the same. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans, are up for re-election and facing primary challengers. Other statewide officials up for re-election include Land Commissioner George P. Bush, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick, all of whom are Republicans. Questions about the voting process? These answers may shed some light: