Another Brick In The Wall

We won’t know full details until tomorrow morning’s absentee update, but looks like there will be 4 million+ votes before Election Day in Georgia.

Nearly half of Georgia’s 2.17 million Black voters have already cast a ballot, and urban counties went gangbusters in final EV days pic.twitter.com/W331zUHKvJ

— stephen fowler (@stphnfwlr) November 2, 2024

Turnout for the first week in Texas was down from 15.7% of registered voters in 2020, to 15.1%. However, voter registration was significantly higher since 2020, and those numbers don’t reflect week two activity. 2020 also saw early voting extended by a week due to the pandemic.

“I'm really pretty surprised to see this mid-week of early voting, still seeing long lines,” French said. 

French said long lines are most common at the beginning and end of early voting, mid-week is a lull. However, she pointed to a three-hour wait time at some Bexar County locations on Wednesday, lines wrapped around buildings in Montgomery County and people waiting an hour in the 90-degree sun in Austin. 

“Even as far as Odessa, we got a report of really long lines and fewer voting machines than in previous years,” she said.

And this just warms the cockles of my yellow dog heart:

Back in Fort Worth, voters said they showed up to vote early this week in spite of the state’s Republican leadership. 

Paul Johnson, 81, said he’s voted early for years to avoid crowds. In the months leading up to the election, Johnson said he heard Gov. Greg Abbott’s rhetoric around noncitizens voting and linked it to the history of voter suppression and intimidation that has long targeted both Black and Latino communities. 

In late August, Abbott claimed that the state had removed more than 1 million ineligible voters from its rolls, including more than 6,500 noncitizens. A Texas Tribune investigation with ProPublica and Votebeat found the latter number was likely inflated. 

“I think [Gov. Abbott] has an agenda to eliminate minority voters. That’s the plan they have,” he says. 

Jaye Taunton, also 81 and a lifelong Fort Worth resident, has always voted early. She said fear-mongering should not be a reason to sit out of what she sees as a critical civic duty. She recalled the sacrifice of previous generations of Black Americans and others who fought for the right to vote. 

“Don’t be fearful. Come out and vote. Your vote is your voice,” she said. “That’s all you have.” 

Fort Worth is one of the most conservative and Republican major urban areas in Texas. So it’s a light in the darkness to read such comments.

Jut south of Austin, turnout is heavy around San Antonio:

With 1,294,889 voters registered to vote in Bexar County, nearly one in every three eligible voters have cast their ballot as of Monday, October 28. By that time, there were nearly 370,000 in-person early voters and election officials had received more than 11,000 mail-in ballots. 

Election officials say there’s been record turnout nearly every day at the polls since early voting started last week, but it’ll take a strong finish this week to beat 2020 numbers when voters were given an entire extra week to make it to a polling site. Should the trend of roughly 48,000 to 49,000 voters continue to show up through the rest of the week, the county would still be pacing behind 2020 numbers. 

If Bexar County continues on its current pace, turnout could approach 570,000 votes but that would still fall nearly 30,000 votes behind 2020’s early voting turnout. It appears that extra week in the last presidential bid really helped bolster numbers considering 2016 early voting turnout dipped well below that at a mere 475,999 votes. 

Either way, daily early voting record turnout is crushing previous years if you ask Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen. “We already have a 14.3% turnout. That’s amazing,” Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said from outside her office Thursday, October 24, noting more than 25,000 early votes had been cast that day halfway through polling hours. “In three-and-half-days, we’ve had as many people vote as we have in some of our city and school elections and in our amendment elections. So, this is just the best.” 

Comal County, which is home to the booming Texas Hill Country city of New Braunfels, is also on track to set records in terms of early voting turnout this election season. Some 58,543 votes were cast as of Monday evening, marking a 43.5% turnout with four days left before the end of early voting. 

Roughly 8,000 voters have turned up to the polls every day in the county. If this trend continues, and it’s shown no signs of letting up, Comal County could see a whopping 90,000 voters before Election Day arrives on November 5. That would be highest number of voters ever in the county without even considering Election Day turnout, which is historically lower. 

Numbers have already surpassed 2016 totals, when just over 63,000 residents cast their ballot. Plus, the county is pacing at 81.2% of 2020’s early votes cast with several days left for numbers to climb. If the trend continues, it will certainly be a record early voting year for Comal County and New Braunfels. However, whether or not the percentage of registered voters that opt to participate in the civic duty will surpass 2020 remains a mystery as voter registration saw a steep spike over the past four years, skewing the turnout percentage rates. 

According to Community Impact, there are 143,696 registered voters in Comal County this year – a notable increase over the past several years. There were 130,109 registered voters in the Texas Hill Country county back in 2022 and 115,876 ahead of the 2020 presidential election, according to data compiled by the Texas Secretary of State. 

Shockingly, there are more than 51,000 new registered voters since the 2016 election and nearly 28,000 more ballot-casters since the last presidential faceoff in 2020. This steady climb in registered voters could be attributed to two factors: Comal County is one of many booming Texas Hill Country regions seeing steady population growth – World Population Review shows some 40,000 folks moved the county over the past four years – and a large wave of young residents in Texas reached voting age.

Texas is always a low turnout state. Any improvement, is an improvement. And who knows where the trend goes?