Congratulations to Texas for passing the entirety of its 2016 vote total today with more than 9 Million votes already in, with 1 more day of in-person voting left today and 5 more days of mail-in-ballots receiving and drop offs.
Bloomberg: Texas Beats Total 2016 Vote Count Four Days Before Election Day
In a sign of the passions sparked by the U.S. presidential race, Texas has surpassed its total 2016 vote count four days before Election Day.
Through Thursday, more than 9 million Texans had cast ballots, compared with 8.97 million four years ago, a record high at the time. Neither party knows who will benefit most from the surge, but it has put the reliably Republican state in play as a full-out battleground in the campaign’s final days.
The biggest jewel in that achievement is Harris County, home to the 4th largest city in the nation, Houston, and a population of almost 5 Million people.
Mostly responsible for the incredible early voting turnout in Harris County was County Clerk Chris Hollins, who came up with creative ways to maximize early voting in his county.
Hollins faced the problem that Republican Governor Greg Abbott, via court intervention, had successfully limited mail-in-ballot drop boxes to just ONE in each county. Imagine, ONE mail-drop-off box for a county with a population of almost 5 Million and very large, 1,700 square miles, an area larger than Rhode Island.
Nowhere has seen a more dramatic display of enthusiasm than Harris County, home to Houston, Texas’s biggest city and the embodiment of its rapid growth and diversifying suburbs. The county’s voting, driven in part by innovations by freshly appointed County Clerk Chris Hollins, so far compose more than 15% of all those cast in the sprawling state.
Chris Hollins is the temporary County Clerk of Harris County, his day job is as vice chair of finance for the Texas Democratic Party. A new County Clerk will be elected on Nov. 3.
There’s no denying the phenomenon, however. The first day of balloting in Harris County, Oct. 13, attracted more voters than all of Georgia, which began the same day. Despite those throngs, complaints of lines have been sparse, thanks to drive-thru voting and more than 100 locations in the county. On Thursday, some Houston polls began staying open all night for people who can’t take off time from work.
Faced with having just one mail-in-ballot drop off box Hollins opened an unprecedented 100 locations in the county for early voting. He opened 10 drive-through locations for early voting to accommodate the handicapped and elderly, and those who really weren’t comfortable going to a voting location in person due to Covid-19. Hollins kept several in-person voting locations open 24 hours on Thursday to accommodate shift workers and all-day workers who had no way to cast their votes during regular opening hours. And that one mail-in ballot drop off box location in Harris County? They put it in NRG Park, Houston's largest sports stadium, home to the Houston Texans football team, an enticing way for county residents to see the inside of a ball park and maybe meet and greet some sports celebrities.
Part of the solution was straightforward: Harris County simply needed more polling locations and longer hours. With that expansion, Hollins would need more volunteers.
With restrictions on who qualified to vote by mail in Texas, Hollins wanted options for pandemic-wary voters. His solution: in-car voting.
The drive-thru is already a staple of Houston, a sprawling city that infamously lacks zoning laws. Why not tap the same model employed by Whataburger and to-go margarita stands?
The previous Harris County Clerk, Trautman, complained about the problem of extremely long voting lines particularly in marginalized communities, before she abruptly resigned leaving the county to fill the position on a temporary basis with Chris Hollins. Hollins went to work to eliminate the problem in his county and with that he created a voting boom in his county that might put Texas in the Democratic column for the first time in many decades.
“It is clear that the history of marginalized communities being left behind in the voting process has led to polling deserts in areas of Harris County,” Diane Trautman, then-Harris County clerk, said in a statement at the time. In the middle of May, weeks before primary runoff elections, she abruptly resigned.
Enter Hollins, a 34-year-old Yale University and Harvard Business School graduate who served as a junior official in the Obama administration’s personnel office. Tapped by county commissioners to correct course, he has kept the early-voting system running, even as opponents continue to throw up new challenges.
Part of the solution was straightforward: Harris County simply needed more polling locations and longer hours. With that expansion, Hollins would need more volunteers.
With restrictions on who qualified to vote by mail in Texas, Hollins wanted options for pandemic-wary voters. His solution: in-car voting.
The drive-thru is already a staple of Houston, a sprawling city that infamously lacks zoning laws. Why not tap the same model employed by Whataburger and to-go margarita stands?
Here is to Chris Hollins, a guy who creatively and against fierce pushback from Governor Abbott and courts, smoothed early voting in Harris County to maximize voter turnout and with that he could have steered Texas to the Democratic Party and Joe Biden.
One of our unsung heroes for 2020.