AUSTIN -- You've probably received about a dozen flyers about Austin's Proposition 1 by now. Some people are also getting a barrage of text messages directly from Uber and Lyft.
Both companies are targeting their Austin customers to get out the vote. Text messages to Uber users Monday reminded them early voting ends Tuesday, and they ask if the ride-hailing app can count on their vote for Proposition 1.
The ballot measure is the result of a 65,000-signature petition that would repeal rules Austin City Council approved in December regulating how ride-hailing apps operate.
"I'm asking you to please vote FOR Prop 1 to keep ridesharing in Austin and help us spread the word," Lyft Austin General Manager Aaron Fox said in a text Sunday. "Lyft and Uber will no longer operate here if Prop 1 doesn't pass. It's going to be extremely close - every vote counts!"
District 6 Council Member Don Zimmerman blamed his fellow council for the election and ballot language.
"Everyone is confused," he said. "Both sides are confused on the matter because the majority of council members deliberately confused the ballot language."
Uber said the fingerprint background check process it is required to use in Houston takes four months to process a new driver if he or she has lived outisde of Texas in the previous seven years.
Joe Deshotel is against Proposition 1, but he knows the fingerprint process well. He works for Electric Cab of Austin and was denied a license twice.
"The chauffeur's licensing process is actually pretty thorough and--to a degree--complicated," he said. "You have to get your fingerprint background check. You have to get your driver's record from every state that you've been in the last few years."
Deshotel said he still has not finished getting his chauffeur's license, but he said the city plans to streamline the process if Proposition 1 fails.
"I do think we could make the process simpler for everyone who wants to work driving people for a living," Deshotel said.
More than 36,000 had voted early as of Monday. That exceeds total voter turnout in May 2011, but is still only 6 percent of Austin's registered voters.