My buddy's polling place moved and nobody told him. It's not a conspiracy — but here's why you'd better check yours before May 26.

My buddy Pete has voted at the same Katy library for five years. This week he went to confirm his spot for the May 26 primary runoff — and it wasn't his anymore.

Pete and his girlfriend are registered Republicans in Katy. Same Harris County library branch on Franz Road, every election, for half a decade. So when Pete pulled up the Texas Secretary of State's polling-place lookup, he expected the library. Instead, his Republican runoff site was a church on Morton Ranch Road, and the library wasn't on the Republican list at all.

Here's what set him off: he checked the Democratic list, and the library was there. The exact building he's always used — open for the other party's runoff, just not his.

His gut read was the one a lot of us would jump to: they're limiting Republicans. I get it. But I checked it before we said a word — because on this site we don't run with anything until it's verified — and the truth is more boring than a conspiracy, and a lot more useful.

What's actually going on. Texas doesn't run one election in a primary — it runs two, a Republican primary and a Democratic primary, as separate elections, each with its own polling-place list set by county and party officials. Those lists also shift between the March primary and the May runoff (Texas Secretary of State). So Pete's library landing on the Democratic list and not the Republican one isn't suppression — each party was assigned its own sites, and the GOP's site for his area is the church. Democrats aren't voting "anywhere" either; they're locked to their list. And the counts were basically tied — 154 Republican sites, 155 Democratic. If anyone were being boxed out, that wouldn't be a dead heat.

The real problem — and it's worth saying out loud: nobody told Pete. His polling place changed and the only reason he knows is he went digging on a government website himself. Most people won't. They'll drive to the place they've always gone, find out it's not theirs, and — if it's raining or they're on a lunch break — just go home without voting. If you're going to move someone's polling place, tell them. A text, an email, a card. The burden shouldn't be on the voter to stumble onto it.

Do this before May 26 — 60 seconds:

• Look up YOUR spot at VoteTexas.gov. Don't assume.
• You vote the runoff of whichever party's primary you voted in back in March (didn't vote in March? you can pick either).
• Check early voting (May 18–22) and Election Day (May 26) separately — they can be different places. Early-voting sites are often shared, so you may still be able to use a convenient one before the 26th.

Share this with one person in Texas. The someone who shows up to the wrong place is the someone who didn't know to check. You forwarding this might be the reason a vote actually gets cast.

I do this full-time — verify first, then hand you something you can use — and it's how I keep this site independent. If it's worth something to you, you can back the work here, and subscribe on the home page so the next one reaches you with no algorithm in the way.