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Early voting in Harris County outpacing 2016, as more than 628K vote in first week

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Jerrylin Schmidt usually votes on Election Day. But this year, she decided to cast an early ballot. She wanted some extra time — just in case.

“We have had so much angst in our country about whether our vote would actually count,施密特说。, 谁住在休斯顿西部.

Schmidt was among 34,496 people in Harris County to cast an in-person ballot Sunday. An additional 8,249 mail-in ballots were returned. They are all part of an expected nationwide trend of higher voter turnout.

虽然周末没有达到100,000-plus in-person turnout recorded each of the first four days of early voting, Saturday and Sunday saw a steady flow of voters. Combined mail and in-person turnout over the weekend was up 2 percent from the first weekend in 2016, but Harris County didn’t count any mail-in ballots on the first Saturday of early voting in 2016, 据县里的书记员说.

Some worried that busy jobs might preclude them from casting a ballot on Nov. 3. Others wanted to avoid the long lines seen at the start of early voting and anticipated again on Election Day. And, of course, there are all the concerns surrounding COVID-19.

And then there were voters such as Schmidt who, 在2020年的混乱中, 无论是流行病, 政治或其他方面, wanted to have plenty of time to sort out issues (should they arise) to make sure their vote counted.

“你要么现在投票,罗伊斯·菲利普斯说, emphasizing the importance of casting a ballot this year, 或者永远保持沉默,他的妻子总结道, 乔伊斯.

整体, 628,708 Harris County residents cast an in-person or mail-in ballot during the first six days of early voting. 2016年的前六天, which was Monday-Saturday rather than this year’s Tuesday-Sunday, 看到527,631名提前选民

A Rice University survey of 4,108 Harris County registered voters estimates that 1.6 million people will vote in Harris County this fall.

“This is great for participatory democracy because we are headed toward a record turnout in this election,迈克尔·亚当斯说, a political scientist at 德克萨斯南方大学.

在全国范围内, Adams cited a Reuters article in which Michael McDonald of the United States Election Project, an organization that provides election statistics, predicted 150 million people could cast a ballot this year. That would represent 65 percent of eligible voters, which hasn’t happened since 1908.

劳伦斯·贝尔二世, who was at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church gymnasium holding a sign for Judge Staci Williams for the Texas Supreme Court, has noticed this year’s early voter excitement. He’s been involved in political campaigns with his mother, Tomaro贝尔, a local activist and president of the MacGregor Park Super Neighborhood Association, 从8岁起.