Early voting records fell across Texas on Friday, as they did this week in El Paso County where 114,765 voted early in person and by mail as of Friday night.
That’s 29.6 percent of the 387,146 registered voters, and County Elections Administrator Javier Chacon said he thinks another 100,000 will turn out Tuesday.
That would push the turnout to 55 percent, another El Paso record.
“We’ve been close to that, but the turnout has always been between 45 and 50 percent,” Chacon said today. “I think the last presidential election was 47 percent."
"It's great, fantastic."
As good as El Paso’s record turnout looks, other Texas counties did better, some far better, in an election in which Texas Democrats hope Barack Obama will take the state, while the polls and Republicans say it’s not going to happen.
Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade’s office has been slow in collecting statewide results, but the latest results they’ve posted on their website show 3.1 million Texans had voted by Thursday night in the state's 15 most populous counties – 37 percent of the total registered in those counties. There are 13.5 million registered voters in Texas.
At the close of early voting Friday, 733,771 people had voted in Houston and Harris County or 37 percent of the registered voters.
In San Antonio and Bexar County, 375,784 of the 930,943 registered voters, or 39 percent, had cast early ballots by the end of the day Friday.
In Austin’s Travis County, 299,325 voted early or by mail, equaling just over 49 percent of registered voters there. As impressive as that might seem, 355,708 voted early there in 2004, or 84 percent of the total turnout.
Williamson County, just north of Austin, saw 113,100 early votes cast, or 48 percent of those registered.
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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605
