By Linda Wilkins
Staff Writer

Texas Secretary of State Esperanza “Hope” Andrade will be on campus today to speak about her voting initiative, “Make Your Mark on Texas.”

Andrade will speak at 1 p.m. at the Bill Daniel Student Center Den stage area and will be available for questions afterward.

Rich Parsons, director of communications at the secretary of state’s office, said Andrade has been making visits all over Texas to potential voters and to encourage people to register to vote. The deadline to register to vote in the Texas primary is Monday.

“Before you can educate people on the voting process, you’ve got to engage them,” Parsons said.

To help voters, a traveling photo booth will be available at the SUB for people to take pictures with the secretary of state and with each other, he said. The pictures represent how people can make their mark on Texas, he said, because people can have them placed into a digital Texas flag. The pictures will make up the entirety of the flag. Pictures can be uploaded to the Facebook page.

The booth will be available from 12:45 to 1:45 p.m.

Parsons said Andrade wanted to student voters by visiting Baylor, which is also a central location of McLennan County. The county has 122,000 registered voters, Parsons said.

The voter education program was designed to provide the 12.9 million registered voters in Texas with all the materials they need for the 2012 elections, he said. Parsons said the materials for voting, which include information on when and where to vote, how to register to vote and voters’ rights, are also online at www.votetexas.gov. Parsons said the secretary of state will be visiting multiple areas of Texas through May 29, when the primary voting occurs.