I've been doing a little research on voter turnout across TX since early voting started on Mon-10/21, and it looks like every major county's voter turnout has outpaced prior elections for the first day of early voting, except for Dallas county - which had a "technical glitch" of generating the WRONG ballots and may have driven away a lot of voters due to delays.
843K Texan voters (4.5% of TX's total registered voters) cast ballots on the first day of early voting (on 10/21) with over 12 counties not even being counted/added yet vs. 755K ballots cast on the first day of early voting in the 2020 Presidential election. Note that Texas has gained 1 million registered voters since the 11/2020 election.
Across the state, the highest population counties have already seen an average of 4-7% of registered voters cast ballots on the FIRST DAY of early voting, with Dallas county being the outlier @ 3.8% of registered voters casting ballots on 10/21, likely impaired by the voting machine "glitches" that occurred there.
First day of early voting (10/21) ballot tallies in high population N. Texas counties:
Dallas county @ 56K
Tarrant county (Ft. Worth metro) @ 58K
Collin county (Dallas suburban) @ 43.4K
Denton county (Dallas suburban) @ 49.8K
Per the Travis County Clerk, Austin/Travis county (Commie - deep blue) in central TX had "historic turnout" - breaking records for the past 3 elections with 46.6K voters casting ballots on the first day of early voting on Mon-10/21 (out of a total of 600K voters expected, 200K of which are anticipated on Election Day-11/5).
References cited: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/long-wait-times-seen-as-early-voting-kicks-off-in-texas
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-early-voting-2024-election-first-day-record/
First day of early voting in TX (10/21) - statewide voter turnout in major metro areas:
Harris county (Houston metro) got 125K voters - which is a 50% increase vs. the Nov. 2016 Presidential election. They compared first day early voting turnout stats to the Nov. 2016 election instead of comparing it to Nov. 2020 b/c the TX Sec. of State hadn't provided the Nov. 2020 early voting stats.
Travis county (Austin metro) got 46.6K voters, which is higher than the past 3 elections.
Bexar county (San Antonio metro) got 47K early voters and some waited in line for over 2 hours to vote.
Dallas county got 56K early voters (noted above)
Turnout was also up well over 2016 levels in more purple, suburban counties like the Houston suburbs of Fort Bend and the Dallas suburb of Collin County.
Reference cited: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4947150-texas-early-voting-turnout-record/
Per the Texas Sec. of State, here are some interesting TX voter stats:
•As of the 3/2024 primaries: TX had 18 million registered voters out of 22 million in voting age population (82% of TX voting age people were registered to vote)
•In the 11/2020 Presidential election, TX had 17 million registered voters out of 21.6 million in voting age population (78.5% of TX voting age people were registered to vote for POTUS election & 75% ratio during 2020 primaries)
•Key take-aways of 2024 vs. 2020 voter registrations: 1 million more TX registered voters in 2024 vs. 2020 with a 3.5% increase in registered voters ratio to voting age population in the March 2024 primaries & a 7% increase in registered voters ratio to voting age population compared to the March 2020 primaries.
Presidential 2020 voter turnout in TX:
•17 million registered voters / 21.6 million voting age population (78.5%)
•Voter turnout: 11.3 million out of 17 million registered voters (66.7%)
•March 2024 Republican primary voter turnout @ 2.3 million (13% of registered voters / 10.6% of voting age population)
•March 2024 Democrat primary voter turnout @ 982K (5.5% of registered voters / 4.5% of voting age population)
Reference cited: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml
I also posted an update re: my experience at my local polling location in a Houston suburb, where I successfully voted (for Pres. Trump) on 10/22. :-) I got to observe the whole (publicly visible) voting operation inside my polling place for about an hour while I waited and thankfully didn't see any shenanigans. Also got feedback from election workers inside and the father of a (Republican) son who's running for TX state legislature re: the volume of voter turnout they're seeing compared to prior elections.
More details in the "UPDATE" portion of my 10/21 post here: https://greatawakening.win/p/199OKT6Q4n/houston-metro-dem-stronghold-pol/
Will do, there are several different categories that we could be assigned to - from mail in ballot opening oversight to machine functions to signature/ID matching to ballot audits after the election. Am awaiting my orders, the training was very thorough so looking forward to it.
Wow - this sounds really interesting! Lots of cool oversight opportunities. The signature machine (that voters sign at the polling location as you check in with your photo ID and voter registration card) at the place I went to had a little screen where you had to sign your name with your FINGER (which makes it super messy / less like your real signature) instead of being able to use a stylus pen thing.
They may do it that way (deliberately less accurate) so they can justify lowering the threshold of matching percentage or something. I think voters should have to sign a piece of PAPER with a PEN so there's a paper trail for auditing and it would be far more accurate in representing each voter's real signature using a pen. Plus you could measure the pressure on the paper of who's writing their signature as well, since that's an element of handwriting analysis too.
In the old days we signed with a pen into an actual logbook. And the clerk wrote our ID info beside it and checked the signature. It must be too hard to find good help these days.
Progress has progressed into progressive.