Today is the last day to vote early in the May elections in Texas, including the special election for Houston City Council District H. Here (PDF) are the early vote totals through Sunday. As of then, 1221 people had voted in person or by mail. Saturday, the first of three days for which EV hours were 7 AM to 7 PM, was the busiest day with 240 in person voters. If Monday and Tuesday are like that, we'll wind up with around 1700 early votes cast, which suggests that my initial projection of 2656 is too low. Probably not by much, though - perhaps the range is more like 2700 to 3500. I'll have a better feel for it when I see Monday's numbers. In the meantime, the basic idea that this is a low-turnout affair and that every vote really counts is still very much in operation.

Speaking of which, I finally did my civic duty on the way home from work yesterday at Moody Park. This might have been the hardest decision I've had to make in an election ever - it was way harder than settling on a Presidential candidate last March. I want to stress again that I considered this to be a dead heat between Ed Gonzalez and Maverick Welsh, both of whom I think would do an excellent job in office. In the end, I finally decided to cast my ballot for Welsh, on the grounds that from what I could see, his team worked harder at it. That's a small thing, one that's only a factor in a race that's as close as this one, but it's what did it for me. If Gonzalez makes the runoff and Welsh doesn't, I'll happily vote for him. If somehow neither of them makes it, I'll figure it out from there.

If you live in H, have you voted yet? Leave a comment and let me know.