The first day of early voting (February 19th) got off to a bang, thanks to a vote-in on the UT campus and the march to vote by students at Prairie View A&M. All throughout the state, voters turned out in record numbers, emphasizing that Texans are excited and eager to cast their votes.
But, guess what folks?
It turns out that that increase has continued to hold. Today is day 5 in the 11-day Texas early voting period. We'll look at some numbers.
More after the jump.
In case you're not from Texas, let me tell you about early voting. It is designed to allow more people the opportunity to vote in elections by expanding the time during which we can vote. You used to have to be able to prove you were not going to be here to vote early, but occasionally this state has some good ideas, and they opened early voting to all of us.
So, to vote early in Texas, if you are registered to vote (the voter registration deadline has passed), you just have to come during the voting window (there is no same-day registration) to centralized voting locations. In Harris County, there are 34 early voting locations.
This year for the primary, that window is February 19th-February 29th.
Early voting has grown in popularity, and many campaigns push it as part of their GOTV strategy (I've gotten 10 calls--one live; 9 robo--urging me to vote early).
According to an article in today's Houston Chronicle, the numbers of people voting continue to astound. This is the reaction to the first day of voting.
Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, who can track electronic voting in real time, said she was surprised to see the first-day turnout was nearly three times that of the 2004 primary.
"I've never seen anything like it. I really haven't," she said. "When I looked at 10:30 a.m., and we've already voted 3,000 people, I said, 'Holy cow. We're going to have some turnout.' "
But what's more astounding is that the numbers have continued to be high.
Again, from the Chronicle:
Harris County residents have cast a record number of early ballots this week, propelled largely by a fiercely competitive Democratic presidential contest, elections and political observers say.
After just four days of early voting, which began Tuesday and ends Feb. 29, the number of in-person votes has surpassed the total cast in early voting in the 2004 presidential primary.
As of the end of voting Friday, 50,997 voters — 38,214 Democrats and 12,783 Republicans — had been to the polls. A total of 35,381 voters cast ballots in person during the entire 2004 early voting period.
For fun, you can see these numbers from the Secretary of State's website:
I'm going to use Harris County, my home county, as an example. The SOS website only has numbers through February 21st, the 3rd day, so I'm using the first three days of early voting as my comparison to other years.
Through Thursday, February 21st, Harris County, which has 1.8 million registered voters, had 1.48% of the population vote early in the DEMOCRATIC primary, for a grand total of 26,729 people. On the Republican side, merely .67% of eligible voters had requested that ballot--8,886 people. This slightly more than 3-1 turnout for Democrats in our county is stunning. Here are some comparison numbers.
In 2004, the last general election primary, for the entire 11-day early-voting period, 17,147 (.94% of total registered voters in the county) people voted with a Republican ballot and 18,234 (1.00% of registered voters) voted for the Deomcratic slate.
In 2006, when there was a lot of attention for a governor's race (hotly contested on the Republican side), the totals went like this:
Republicans: 24,602 voters (1.31 % of registered voters)
Democrats: 8,760 voters (.45% of registered voters)
I'm going to throw one more bit out there. If you add the Democratic and Republican ballots cast so far in the primary, you get a total of 2.14% of the electorate having voted during the first three days of the primary. This compares with 1.44% having voted in the first three days of early voting in the General Election of 2006 (with the high-interest Governor's Race) and 3.27% of the electorate voting in the first three days of the 2004 General Election.
Clearly, you can't exactly figure out what's going to happen through the rest of the primary early voting period. But, I think it's fair to say that interest is high here and throughout the state. I'll try to post another diary next week so we can peek at the numbers again.
The Chronicle article adds:
It's busy all over
Early voting in Galveston County also has been heavy, with Democrats outvoting Republicans three to one in the first three days, elections coordinator Douglas Godinich said. He ascribed the large turnout by Democrats to news coverage and a local appearance by former President Bill Clinton in Galveston on Wednesday.
Record early voting also was being reported in Brazoria County, especially among Democrats, said county elections director Janice Evans. By the end of voting Thursday, 2,868 ballots had been cast in the Democratic primary and 2,803 in the GOP primary.
And in Fort Bend County, the number of early ballots already has surpassed the total of all early voting in 2006, when a little more than 5,000 votes were cast. As of Friday afternoon, 9,699 ballots — 6,491 Democratic and 3,208 Republican — had been cast, interim elections administrator Robin Heiman said. There are roughly 270,000 registered voters in Fort Bend County.
A couple of notes about Texas. We don't have party registration, per se. When you arrive at the primary, you can request either a Democratic or a Republican ballot. You are then considered affiliated with that party. They stamp your voter registration card with whichever ballot you took, in case there are run-offs on that ballot.
We have some strong county Democratic candidates here, and a scandal in the Republican-controlled DA's office. Many of us are hoping that this enthusiasm in the primary carries over to the general. Houston itself primarily votes Democratic, but the county as a whole has been Republican-controlled as the outer suburbs tip the balance substantially. As the Chronicle article makes clear, it's hard to figure out if that's going to translate to the General Election:
Whether the Democrats' motivation might turn into a trend for local seats now filled by Republicans in November is difficult to predict.
But a key way for campaigns to identify Democrats in Texas, which does not require party identification with registration, is with primary turnout. The larger the turnout, which has been puny for more than a decade, the more new Democrats to target with mail pieces, phone calls and get-out-the-vote reminders.
As for me, my husband and I are going to vote early today. We don't usually, so we'll be more small blips of increase in those numbers.
UPDATE: Thanks for all the recs. We can all get behind voting. Here's another web site, for those that are interested in following along with elections results in Harris County. Click on Election Results and then Early voting. It breaks early voting down by each voting location, and by party. I'll try to take a look at this and see if anything jumps out.
UPDATE #2: I've looked at the voting numbers for Harris County and I want to point a few things out. This includes Friday voting
Tomball voting location (heavily Republican): 413 Democrats, 586 Republicans
Julia C Hester House (primarily AA area): 550 Democrats, 0 Republicans
Clear Lake (leans Republican): 1648 Democrats, 865 Republicans
West Gray Multi Service Center (heart of the city): 2911 Democrats, 529 Republicans
Kingwood (strong Republican area): 848 Democrats, 1012 Republicans
I'll keep looking to see if anything else jumps out. I want to make it clear that the demographic information is a bit misleading when it comes to Early Voting. You can vote at ANY early voting location, not the closest one; you are not zoned to a specific early voting site. I think that muddles results of places close to downtown or elsewhere there are large blocks of offices, like the West Gray Multi-Service Center.
UPDATE #3: Harris County had mailed out 28,439 absentee ballots (17946 Republican and 10493 Democratic). To date, 5227 have been returned (3206 Republican and 2021 Democratic). It's a small number, but just interesting to note.