You’re going to hear the words “record-breaking” a lot.
More than 125,000 Harris County residents went to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots on the first day of early voting, smashing the county’s previous records.
As of about 7:30 p.m., the county was reporting roughly 128,000 votes with some people still casting ballots.
The polls were scheduled to close at 7 p.m., but people who were in line at that time still can vote.
The previous record for the first day of early voting was roughly 68,000 in 2016, which the county surpassed around 1:40 p.m. Tuesday.
Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins said the county also broke the record for most early votes on any day, which was set on the last day of the 2016 period.
“We’ve had a record first day of Early Voting in Harris County,” the clerk’s office said on Twitter.
Here is your Day One report. It looks funny because it doesn’t all fit on one page horizontally, and there are so many more locations than before. It’s not going to make sense to do daily comparisons with past elections, but let’s compare Day Ones just for fun:
Election Mail Early Total Mail %
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2008 29,301 39,201 68,502 42.8%
2012 40,566 47,093 87,659 46.3%
2016 61,543 64,471 129,014 47.7%
2018 52,413 63,188 115,601 45.3%
2020 41,337 128,186 169,523 24.4%
I threw 2018 in there because it was such a high-enthusiasm election. You can find the daily totals for 2008 and 2012 (and 2016 as well, but I’ve got a separate link for it) here, for 2016 here, and for 2018 here.
I would not read anything into the smaller number of mail ballots so far, mostly because there will be another six days of their return before we’d be at the same point in the calendar as the other years. My guess is we’ll be past where 2018 was and close to 2016 if not past it by next Monday.
What does this mean for final turnout? Hard to say right now, though as noted the excitement and drive to vote is as think as rush hour traffic. The daily vote roster will give us some idea how many of these folks are the old reliables and how many are newer or less likely to participate. For sure, some of this is a shift in behavior, but we’re now already more than ten percent of the way to 1.5 million total voters, and that’s on the low end of the “turnout as a percentage of registered voters” scale. Note also that some folks prefer to wait a bit precisely because Day One is always busy. I’m probably going to vote early next week, or maybe later this week. Let’s see what the next few days look like, and remember that outside of Day One, the rest of the first week is usually the slow period.
All that fervor to vote did mean some long lines and a few glitches, but overall things went as well as you could want in Harris County.
In Harris County, which is operating 112 early voting locations, 10 of which include drive-through voting, dozens of people were waiting in line at some of the busiest sites, including NRG Arena and the Multi-Service Center on West Gray Street, by the time polls opened at 7 a.m.
It look less than seven hours for Harris County to surpass its record of 68,000 in-person votes on the first day of early voting from the 2016 presidential election.
Some sites, such as the Houston Food Bank, which is operating an early voting site for the first time, did not have any lines shortly after polls opened.
At the multi-service center, a socially distanced line formed around the block, filled by voters who had lined up well before 7 a.m.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” said Hannah McCauley, a voter who said she never misses an election. “If I have to wait, I have to wait.”
Tijuana Jones, 49, was in line an hour before the polls opened and still was facing about a 30-minute wait by 7:45 a.m.
“It is time,” Jones said. She was ready to vote against President Donald Trump, she said, no matter how long the line.
I heard on Facebook and Twitter from a lot of folks who needed more than an hour to cast their ballot. Normally that’s a bad thing, because no one should have to wait that long, but remember: This was Day One, there are 17 more days on which to vote, there will be some round-the-clock locations later in the period, and there were 112 locations, spread all around the county. I mean, if you’re going to West Gray to vote, you know what you’re in for.
This is a different matter:
In Fort Bend County, an election system glitch caused frustration and delays, apparently the result of election officials setting computers for next week instead of Tuesday, according to District Attorney Brian Middleton. As a result, the county’s election system was down countywide and hundreds of people were left waiting in line.
“It’s just inexcusable,” said Middleton, outside of the Smart Financial Centre. “Certain things just should not happen.”
Middleton said his office would investigate the incident. Fort Bend County Judge KP George also promised to take action.
“Those who are responsible, we will do something about it and make sure it won’t happen again,” George said.
State Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Missouri City Democrat who gathered with other elected officials outside the Smart Financial Centre voting location in Sugar Land, said he received complaints from residents about the voting delays.
“The computers aren’t working because the county officials that were responsible for making sure that they could vote (at) the appropriate time didn’t think enough of the voters to correctly set the machines,” said Reynolds. “I find that very irresponsible. I think that it is derelict of their duties. You could say it’s a form of voter suppression. It really disturbs me.”
Voting machines went down again at Smart Financial Centre and three other locations around 10:30 a.m. because of technical issues, according to Middleton.
However, 26 other polling locations were operating across the county.
Voting hours were extended for the rest of the first week in Fort Bend to make up for this. Juanita has some sharp words for the county’s elections administrator, who was hired by the previous administration, so we can surmise who “those who are responsible” may be.
I’ll be staying on top of the data as we go. Did you vote yesterday? If not, when are you planning to vote?
I chose to vote yesterday because I wanted it done ASAP. I was prepared to wait as long as it took, but it ended up being 20 minutes. That actually is now my new record for longest wait.
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