TURNING OUT
Harris County residents already had cast a record number of ballots before polls opened
Ever-growing Harris County sets record for ballots cast.
Residents in ever-growing Harris County had already cast a record number of ballots before the polls opened on Election Day, but by lunchtime Tuesday voters had also turned out to vote at the highest rate in nearly three decades.
Voters topped the 2008 turnout mark before 11 a.m., and by nightfall 67 percent of the county’s nearly 2.5 million registered voters had participated in the election.
A majority of votes haven’t been cast on Election Day in a presidential contest in Harris County since 2004, but given that 58 percent of registered voters had already cast their ballots before Tuesday, Election Day’s share of overall votes was the lowest in memory, providing about a sixth of all ballots.
Polls listed Texas a toss-up between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and early voting figures showed Biden earning a solid cushion of votes from urban areas, including a huge margin in Harris County. But with incomplete Election Day results posted by deadline, it seemed unlikely Biden’s edge in Lone Star cities would withstand Trump’s margins in rural areas and improved showing in the Rio Grande Valley.
In Harris County, an analysis of nearly 90 percent of all votes showed Biden was on track to hold 631 voting precincts the Democratic ticket won in 2016 and 2018, and to flip 14 precincts Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz won in those elections. Biden also was winning 23 of the 31 precincts Democratic Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke flipped to the Democratic column in 2018.
Trump was winning 235 precincts he and Cruz had won previously, and was on track to flip six precincts that had voted for Democrats in 2016 and 2018. This analysis excludes all precincts in which less than 50 votes had been cast by deadline in 2020, as small vote counts fluctuate widely election to election.
While Harris County voters did not match the 72 percent turnout recorded in 1992, when former president — and Houstonian — George H.W. Bush was seeking re-election, the area’s rapid growth ensured this election would set records. Since 2016, Harris County has added as many voters as are registered in Galveston, Chambers and Waller counties combined.
Fort Bend County, itself a boomtown, also set a record for raw votes, and recorded voter turnout of more than 70 percent.
Texas as a whole also was poised for a high-turnout showing, given that 57 percent of voters already cast ballots early. Aiding the early tallies was Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to add a week to the early voting period in the hopes of reducing lines
and therefore the spread of COVID-19.
Asmuch as Election Day is about numbers, of course, it is also defined by the people behind them.
At BakerRipley, a nonprofit office functioning as a polling site, Mariachi Imperial performed for voters — and welcomed voter Larry Luna as a guest vocalist; he sang “Canta y No Llores.” Other voters enjoyed some tacos and coffee or horchata.
Formany, anxiety ran high. Clair Vann, sporting her sparkly Black Lives Matter mask, planned to vote at Missouri City Community Center in Fort Bend and then see a movie and avoid the news for the rest of the day.
The 60-year-old Missouri City resident had done her part to boost turnout by helping her hair stylist register to vote, then cheering her decision to cast a ballot.
“I've never missed an election, ever, for whatever it was for,” Vann said.
Other voters were making their first civic memories. Alejandro Gonzalez, 63, became a citizen in
2012 and voted for the first time Tuesday. The mechanic wasn’t thrilled about the candidates, but he loved voting, and sent a picture of his “I voted” sticker to his friends.
The election administrator, County Clerk Chris Hollins, made a big entrance shortly before lunch, visiting polling sites withMayor Sylvester Turner in Acres Homes in a horse-drawn carriage.
Turner, whowas born in the rela
tively rural area years before it was drawninside the city limits, called it “giddy up to the polls.”
“We do ride,” Turner said of his area’s affinity for equestrian pursuits. “No use changing it on Election Day.”