From the Pews to the Polls: Texas Pastors Lead a 'Blackout Sunday' Early-Voting Push

Pastors from East Texas to the Dallas suburbs planned to close their Sunday services on October 25 by leading their congregations straight to the polls, part of a statewide early-voting push organizers are calling “Blackout Sunday,” the Texas Gazette reported, based on The Lufkin Daily News' reporting. The effort is organized through Freedom Uprising, a group of pastors across Texas working to get as many people as possible to vote early for the Nov. 3 election. “The goal was 1,000. Now it's already up to 3,000 pastors that have committed,” organizer Andro Branch, a Lufkin pastor, told the Lufkin paper. “Pastors are encouraged after service to lead their congregations to early voting at their respective local polls.” The Gazette noted it has not independently confirmed the number of participating pastors.

Branch, pastor of Our Father's House of Faith Apostolic Church in Lufkin, said the effort is not aimed at helping either party. “Our efforts are nonpartisan,” he told the paper. “We're encouraging people to vote their conscience. It's about letting them have their voices heard.” He tied the push to the church's historic civic role — “We're trying to take it back old school. Pastors have the ears of a lot of people” — and said churches he oversees in Henderson, Marshall, Tyler and the Longview area were taking part alongside Lufkin congregations. Organizers have also made phone calls, knocked on doors and handed out sample ballots, and Branch said voters who run into problems at the polls can contact legal teams for help: “We're making sure no voting rules are violated.” His past “Souls to the Polls” efforts offered rides to voters and served food at the church.

Congregations elsewhere in Texas promoted the same day in their own words. Westside Baptist Church in Lewisville posted a notice from its senior pastor, the Rev. Delvin Atchison, asking members to go to the polls “immediately after Sunday services on October 25th”; the church's announcement, branded “Impact Texas 2026,” set goals of 1,000 churches and “100% voter participation” and told members, “This ain't about RED or BLUE! This is about YOU!” In Dallas, St. Luke Community United Methodist Church listed Blackout Sunday on its fall calendar as “a gathering of congregations participating in voting after church,” scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 25, with its voter-education programming sponsored by the African American Pastors Coalition of North Texas.

The push landed on the only Sunday of the early-voting period. Early voting in Texas runs through Friday, Oct. 30, with Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and voters may cast a ballot at any early-voting location in the county where they are registered, though Sunday hours and locations vary by county. Church-led trips to the polls are a long-running tradition in many Black congregations in particular, and this year's U.S. Senate race has drawn competing pastor coalitions for Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico; the Blackout Sunday organizers quoted in the reporting have not endorsed a candidate and describe the effort as turnout only. “We want so many people to vote that it will set a record for early voting,” Branch told the Lufkin paper.