Crowds of Houstonians, wearing hard hats and business suits, gather daily for lunch at Tacos Tierra Caliente on a corner of West Alabama in Montrose. Alongside the usual cilantro and guacamole, customers can now pick up a voter registration form to go with their order of street tacos.

The registration drive, sparked by a controversial statement earlier this month from a Latino surrogate for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, is one of several initiatives to sign up what is anticipated to be a record number of voters in November.

Marco Gutierrez, founder of Latinos for Trump, recently made national headlines by saying, regarding immigrants in the country illegally: "My culture is a very dominant culture, and it's imposing and it's causing problems. If you don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks on every corner."

That barb spurred Mi Familia Vota - a Latino voting advocacy group - to partner with the design firm Rigsby Hull to provide registration forms at a number of Houston-area taco trucks.

Such efforts have helped boost the number of people registered to vote in Harris County to 2,193,530, up almost 175,000 from four years ago, according to Mike Sullivan, the county's tax assessor-collector.

Early voting urged

It's a trend that prompted Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart to call a news conference Wednesday, just a few blocks from the Tacos Tierra Caliente truck, to encourage people to vote early and avoid the crowds. Early voting begins in Texas on Oct. 24.

"I'm planning on total turnout of 1.4 million," Stanart said. "The last presidential election, we had 1.2 million. The presidential elections stretch our whole infrastructure."

He said 60 percent of voters are expected to cast their ballots at an early voting location before the Nov. 8 election.

"Don't wait until the last two days of early voting, don't wait until the last two hours on election day," he said. "As many people as we're going to be servicing, we're going to have congestion. There could be lines."

He said he expects 100,000 people to vote on the last day of early voting.

As the county's chief election official, Stanart is tasked with administering elections in accordance with state and federal voting guidelines.

Part of those rules have changed in the past month after a federal court tossed out the state's voter identification law, requiring a photo identification to vote.

Stanart's election website, harrisvotes.com, reflects the interim guidelines imposed by the court. They allow voters who do not possess an acceptable form of photo identification, and cannot obtain one because of a reasonable impediment, to fill out a form and use a supporting form of identification, like a current utility bill, bank statement or paycheck.

Stanart was quick to point out that voters who have a photo identification, like a Texas driver's license or a U.S. passport, are required to present it in order to vote.

The county clerk defended his website, which says "voter ID required" on its front page and which has drawn fire for being misleading from the same groups who brought the lawsuit against the state's voter ID law.

"Harris County has a troubling record of voter harassment that even necessitated a recent federal court order directing their voter registration practices," said Chad Dunn, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. "At this point, it has taken several months to get the county clerk's website where it is, which is technically accurate on the voter ID requirements in some respects but potentially misleading nonetheless."

Deadline approaching

Before going to the polls, however, voters have to register by the deadline on Oct. 11, hence the taco truck outreach.

Maria Samano, the owner of Tacos Tierra Caliente, has run her truck for nearly 17 years.

"Every person has a right to make a living. I don't care about those comments," Samano said of Gutierrez's jabs. "He's entitled to his opinion, but I am happy for my work."

Tila Hidalgo, owner of Tilas Tacos, agreed with Samano that taco trucks are convenient locations for people to register to vote. Hidalgo said she was eager to join the effort to increase Latino voter turnout because of the unique role the trucks play in the community.

In Texas, more than 14 million people were registered to vote for the primaries that began in March. Currently, 1.7 million more people are registered to vote in November than were registered for the presidential election in 2012, according to the Texas secretary of state.

Texas has the second largest Hispanic eligible voting population in the country, at about 4.8 million residents, according to a study from the Pew Research Center. But in 2012, just 39 percent of eligible Hispanic voters cast a ballot, according to a report from the polling company Latino Decisions.

To help overcome this deficit, participating taco trucks were outfitted with blue posters reading "Registrate Y Vota," voter registration forms, as well as custom made pamphlets in both English and Spanish explaining how to register.

Carlos Duarte, the state director for Mi Familia Vota Texas, said the effort also has a secondary purpose of changing public views on the Latino community.

"Latino immigrants, and Mexican immigrants in particular, not only contribute with their gastronomy - their food - but we also contribute with our work, and we also contribute with our civic engagement," Duarte said. "We are also trying to change the perception that the Latino community is not engaged."

Republicans upbeat

And while Hispanic populations tend to skew Democratic, GOP leaders in Harris County said they are optimistic about turnout and focused on getting out the vote.

"It is clear to me and others that Republicans are motivated and working to keep Harris County Republican," said Paul Simpson, the county's party chairman. "Our volunteers have already made hundreds of thousands of calls and knocked on thousands of additional doors. We will be busy turning out Republicans throughout early voting and up until the polls close on Election Day."