Harris County breaks all-time voter turnout record

Harris County on Thursday broke its all-time voter turnout record with one day of early voting remaining, the Harris County Clerk’s Office announced on Twitter.

The office had not released the early voting numbers as of press time. Eight polling locations remained open overnight into Friday.

The turnout record of 1.34 million was set in the 2016 election.

Texas also hit a statewide early voting milestone Monday, when the percentage of registered voters who cast ballots surpassed the total early voting turnout from any other presidential election, the Texas Tribune reported.

Harris County set its record despite the lingering COVID-19 pandemic and a flurry of lawsuits over the management of the election.

Harris County Clerk Christopher Hollins created an ambitious $27 million election plan for this year, making several changes that include nearly tripling the number of early voting sites, adding drive-thru voting, sending mail ballot applications to all registered seniors and hiring more than 11,000 poll workers.

Those additions included a 24-hour voting period from Thursday to Friday — a gesture that experts characterized as largely symbolic.

“Even if they net only a few voters, it speaks volumes about the clerk’s commitment to making voting easy to everyone,” said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus.

Zach Despart contributed to this report.