The number of Texans who showed up at the polls on the first day of early voting is up at least 15% over that for the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
At least 870,000 people cast a ballot Monday, surpassing 2020′s opening day by over 87,000, though some counties are still reporting their tallies, according to Texas Secretary of State data.
“Higher numbers would make sense for a couple of reasons,” said Matthew Wilson, an associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. “The state’s population has grown, so you have more voters than you did four years ago. But there’s also more excitement about this presidential election than there was four years ago.” He also noted residents who may have had to vote by mail because of COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 may be casting ballots in person instead.
The secretary of state’s office says a record 18.6 million Texans are registered to vote, a nearly 10% increase from 2020.
More than a dozen counties hadn’t reported their first-day numbers of in-person voters to the state as of 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, but initial numbers for the Nov. 5 election this year were higher than thewy were four years ago. Early voting runs through Nov. 1, and most people cast their ballots ahead of Election Day.
Still, state data shows record-high first-day early voting presidential election numbers around North Texas boosted the statewide tally. But that wasn’t the case in Dallas County, where numbers dipped below those for 2020 and 2016.
The presidential election between Republican former president Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris headlines the Nov. 5 election. Voters are also being asked to weigh in on a wide range of other items on the ballot this year, including the election of a U.S. senator and a series of local races and controversial ballot propositions around the state.
Dallas County officials reported 56,074 voters cast ballots on Monday. According to the state, that’s fewer than the 60,573 voters who went to the polls in person on the first day of early voting in October 2020 and 58,775 voters in October 2016.
Collin County reported seeing 43,398 voters, more than the 39,469 in 2020 and 31,283 in 2016. There were 49,813 voters who showed up Monday in Denton County, compared with 36,040 in 2020 and 16,936 in 2016. In Tarrant County, 58,247 people voted Monday, more than the 42,351 in 2020 and 43,149 in 2016.
Those counties have seen population growth in recent years. In 2020, Tarrant County had 2.1 million residents, Collin County had 1 million, and Denton County had more than 900,000. The latest U.S. Census estimates show Tarrant County has nearly 2.2 million residents, Collin County has about 1.2 million, and there are 1 million in Denton County. Dallas County’s population has hovered at 2.6 million.
Nic Solorzano, a Dallas County Elections Department spokesman, described the turnout Monday as “really great” but said officials were still analyzing the numbers as of Tuesday and they could provide an explanation for the numbers.
Dallas County officials also reported Tuesday that software issues at several polling locations led to long delays for voters and some got the wrong ballot.
Solorzano said the county was still trying to determine how many of its 71 voting centers were affected, but the issues were resolved by Tuesday.
“We had a few calls from around the county,” he said. Solorzano said voters weren’t turned away and he didn’t believe the software issue affected first-day turnout numbers.
The Dallas County Republican Party last week raised a series of concerns about the county’s voting machines, but a state examination team found the machines were working as they should during tests earlier this month. The concerns largely focused on how votes were being counted.
The Secretary of State’s election division examination team wrote Wednesday that the voting machines “counted ballots correctly and (comply) with the applicable standards for certification of a voting system under the Texas Election Code.”
Wilson said seeing the initial numbers out of Dallas County was surprising because other areas had higher turnout than in previous years or around the same tally.
“It’s hard to read a lot into these numbers from a partisan standpoint, but that’s maybe one thing that would concern me a little bit if I was on the Democratic side is that Dallas County, the most Democratic county in the metroplex, is not quite keeping pace with the other counties in terms of early voting,” he said.
He added that voters not being required to register their political parties in Texas made it hard to tell who is and isn’t showing up to vote.
