Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Early Voting in Texas

Early Voting began on Monday in Texas. The Secretary of State publishes the early vote totals for the 15 counties with the largest number of registered voters each day during the twelve days of early voting. After the first day of early voting, 575,941 had been cast (either in-person voting or by-mail voting) in those fifteen counties. The total exceeded the early votes cast in the 15 counties in 2008 by 229,253 votes, and the total votes cast in 2012 by 196,998. The graph below compares voting in the 15 counties in 2008, 2008, and 2016:



Since the number of registered voters increased significantly between 2008 and 2016 in the 15 counties, perhaps the better comparison involves the percentage of registered voters who voted rather than the total number of votes. Regardless, the increase, as depicted in the chart below, is impressive:



I will post the cumulative results daily as the Texas Secretary of State releases them. Could more than half of the voters in those 15 counties vote early in 2016?

The fifteen counties, the number of registered voters in each county in 2014 and 2016, the increase in registered voters, and the increase in each county as a percentage of the total increase in the 15 counties is shown in the table below:


County
Registered Voters 2016
Registered Voters 2014
Increase Between 2014 & 2016
Percentage of Total Increase
HARRIS
2,234,678
2,062,792
171,886
21.99%
DALLAS
1,287,171
1,203,513
83,658
10.71%
TARRANT
1,077,618
999,687
77,931
9.97%
BEXAR
1,045,360
957,110
88,250
11.29%
TRAVIS
725,041
655,056
69,985
8.96%
COLLIN
536,915
485,406
51,509
6.59%
DENTON
464,829
407,040
57,789
7.39%
EL PASO
428,320
403,979
24,341
3.11%
FORT BEND
404,038
363,147
40,891
5.23%
HIDALGO
338,563
318,772
19,791
2.53%
MONTGOMERY
311,882
281,496
30,386
3.89%
WILLIAMSON
299,960
271,612
28,348
3.63%
GALVESTON
208,228
191,961
16,267
2.08%
NUECES
199,468
190,179
9,289
1.19%
CAMERON
197,726
186,563
11,163
1.43%

9,759,797
8,978,313
781,484

 
Interestingly, the number of registered voters in these 15 counties constitute 64.63 percent of all registered voters in Texas (15,100,824).