EV Day 3 – Where the early votes are

EarlyVoting

Three days into early voting and the numbers continue to be strong, with a third consecutive day of in-person totals topping 5,000. Here are all the daily totals:

2013
2011
2009
2007

Some people, like Campos, have been trying to get a handle on what this might mean for African-American turnout in particular, since Ben Hall – and Ronald Green and Andrew Burks – are counting on good A-A turnout to varying degrees for their electoral success. As a starting point for that discussion, let’s take a look at the early vote share at locations in predominantly African-Americans locations:

Year HD131 HD139 HD141 HD142 HD146 HD147 Total ===================================================== 2013 1.9% 3.4% 4.8% 3.7% 9.2% 4.0% 27.0% 2011 0.8% 3.0% 4.8% 2.8% 10.7% 4.6% 26.7% 2009 2.6% 3.1% 5.1% 3.2% 8.1% 4.0% 26.1% 2007 2.4% 3.8% 5.2% 2.9% 9.6% 4.6% 28.5%

The numbers above represent the share of the vote cast at the early vote location or locations in the specified State Rep districts. For the three previous cycles I calculated this based on final EV totals, and for this year I used the totals so far. This year doesn’t look a whole lot different from the last three cycles if you ask me. Obviously, this is a rough measure so don’t put too much stock in it, but it’s clear there’s no big surge relative to the rest of the county. Which brings up a second point, that we may be seeing an increase in non-Houston voters, which would mean that these totals are in fact higher where it matters. To that end, let’s look at the locations that are primarily or entirely outside city limits:

Year HD126 HD128 HD130 HD132 HD135 HD144 HD150 Total ============================================================= 2013 4.0% 2.7% 4.6% 2.4% 2.2% 1.3% 1.0% 18.2% 2011 2.9% 2.2% 4.6% 1.4% 2.2% 2.0% 1.0% 16.3% 2009 4.2% 2.2% 3.2% 1.4% 1.7% 1.3% 0.9% 14.9% 2007 5.0% 5.9% 1.3% 1.5% 5.5% 1.0% 1.0% 21.1%

Up a bit from the previous two cycles but down from 2007. City turnout was roughly the same in 2007 and 2011, but city turnout as a share of total county turnout differed:

2011 – 73.6% of Harris County vote came from city of Houston voters.
2009 – 69.5% of Harris County vote came from city of Houston voters.
2007 – 63.6% of Harris County vote came from city of Houston voters.

I suspect 2009 broke the pattern because of stronger Election Day turnout. In any event, as with African-American turnout I don’t see anything terribly out of whack with past elections. Again, this is a rough measure, and we won’t know for sure what things look like till we see that first set of results on Election Day evening. There may be surprises lurking – there almost always are – but nothing that stands out to me based on the numbers we’ve seen so far.

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2 Responses to EV Day 3 – Where the early votes are

  1. Carl Whitmarsh says:

    Not sure exactly what the attraction of the Waugh Drive location is, but the traffic, interminable card pushers and candidates not to mention the wait gets on my nerves. Why not go to the Downtown location or try one of te suburban locations like the NEW Lone Star College Victory Center located at 4141 Victory between Antoine and TC Jester. No one knows about these hidden jewels and there is plenty of parking, no card pushers and absolutely no lines….much better than Waugh, Mendenhall or the like…

  2. Mainstream says:

    Instead of Waugh, I assume you mean the West Gray Multiservice Center location.

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