More than 100,000 voters flocked to the polls for the second day in a row.
More than11 percent of the county’s voter roll has cast ballots so far
Harris County obliterated turnout records again on Wednesday when more than 100,000 voters flooded polling places for the second day in a row.
By the evening, 287,931 total in-person and mail ballots had been cast, more than 11 percent of the voter roll, with 17 early voting days remaining.
Harris County Clerk Christopher Hollins said the record participation is a return on investment for his office’s ambitious elections plan, which included nearly tripling the number of early voting sites, extending polling hours, adding voting machines and encouraging voting by mail.
“It shouldn’t surprise us that more Texans vote when we make voting easy and accessible to everyone,” Hollins said. “People across this county are yearning to have their voices heard.”
Wednesday picked up where Tuesday left off. Voters on Tuesday shattered the record for first day of early voting, with more
than 128,000 ballots cast and 41,000 mail ballots received. The previous first day record was 68,000 votes, set in 2016.
According to a Houston Chronicle analysis, 61 percent of Tuesday’s votes came from precincts Democrat Hillary Clinton won in 2016, while 39 percent came from precincts won by President Donald Trump
In that year, 58 percent of all ballots came from Clinton precincts, compared to 42 percent
for Trump, meaning a potential swing of 3 points toward Democrats in the first day of early voting. Clinton carried Harris County by 12 points in 2016.
Ballots cast so far in precincts where Clinton four years ago won at least 75 percent of the vote comprise 3.4 percent more of the overall tallies than they did in the 2016 contest. And in precinctswhere she got less than 25 percent of the vote four years ago, this year’s votes so far make up 1.2 percent less of the overall tally than was the case four years ago.
Despite the numbers, little can be gleaned about which party is winning after a single day of in-person voting. The early numbers could suggest local Democrats are poised to pummel Republicans up and down the ballot, or merely that their voters aremore eager to complete their ballots.
Or both can be true, University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said.
“Given President Trump’s rhetoric on voting and Texas Republican efforts to constrain opportunities for voting, Democrats want to see their ballots in the box early,” he said.
A Pew Research Center poll inAugust found Democrats were nearly twice as likely as Republicans to believe voting would be difficult this year; another found supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden were much
more likely to vote bymail.
What is indisputable is that Harris County, the most populous in the state, continues to set turnout records. More residents cast ballots Wednesday than any other early voting day in county history — except for Tuesday.
That also meant long lines again were a problem at some poll locations. At noon, almost a third of the county’s 112 early vote sites reported waits of more than 40 minutes.
Delays in traditionally Republican west Harris County were particularly lengthy, where more than half of the early voting sites had 40-minute-plus lines. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle on Tuesday asked Hollins to deploy more voting machines to the area.
The two Republican commissioner precincts have about 54 percent of the county’s registered voters but just 45 percent of
early voting sites.
“I was hoping it’d be inand- out today, but I guess not,” said Don Peters as he arrived at the Klein Multipurpose Center in northwest Harris County.
Peters questioned whether county officials put “all their new money” into more Democrat-leaning areas.
A spokeswoman for Hollins noted the county has secured additional voting machines since 2016. She did not respond to a question about whether the county has re-deployed resources based on turnout so far.
Harris County’s turnout also likely is boosted by its larger voter roll, which has grown by more than 230,000 voters since the last presidential election in 2016.