Early voting starts today for SD06 runoff

It’s runoff time for SD06. Early voting begins today and runs through Tuesday, February 26. Here are the early voting locations, which are the same as they were for the first round:

See Harris Votes for more. With only seven days of early voting, and only three of those days being full 7 AM to 7 PM days, GOTV efforts for both Sylvia Garcia and Rep. Carol Alvarado will be even more important.

One thing Alvarado will have going for her as voting begins is the Chron’s endorsement.

Rep. Carol Alvarado

Runoff candidates Sylvia Garcia and Carol Alvarado are both dedicated public servants with a long history of representing the area.

In terms of political positions, there’s not much difference between them. Both are Democrats who vow to strengthen state education spending and expand Medicaid. They differ chiefly in the way in which they’d go about achieving their goals. Garcia vows to go toe-to-toe against Gov. Rick Perry and other Republicans. Alvarado says that she’d continue to do what she’s done as a member of the Republican-controlled Texas House: work with members across the aisle to get legislation passed.

We believe that Alvarado’s approach will serve her district best. In part, that’s pure pragmatism. Given Republicans’ utter dominance of our state’s government, a Democrat who hopes to accomplish anything at all has to play nicely with the GOP. But it’s also the solution to a larger problem. Both Texas and the United States need more politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, who can find middle ground and nudge the body politic forward. Alvarado is that kind of legislator.

Residents of the district are familiar with Alvarado and her staff, who are frequent presences at civic club meetings and neighborhood events. That sort of ground-level constituent service might not be notable elsewhere, but it is in places like the east side of Houston, Galena Park and South Houston. Many of the area’s neighborhoods receive too little attention from the elected officials who are supposed to serve them.

Members of the Legislature also are familiar with Alvarado. That’s especially important in this runoff because its winner will have to hit the ground running. She’ll be sworn into the state Senate with only a few days left in which bills can be filed. As a third-term member of the House, Alvarado knows the legislature’s ins and outs and has already established many of the relationships she’ll need to serve her district.

Congrats to Rep. Alvarado for getting the endorsement.

For those of you who still want to hear more about issues in this race – I know, how quaint – Stace summarizes a Univision report that has more information than we’ve seen in other recent reports.

I’ll keep an eye on daily early voter turnout. I think there’s a better chance this time around that early turnout will be less than half of final turnout – it was about 60% of final turnout for Round One – and I think there’s a decent chance that total turnout will match or exceed turnout from the first election. I’m just guessing, however – it could easily be the case that turnout declines. Before anyone clucks their tongues about the nature of certain districts, note Greg‘s words about how turnout in SD06 compares to the special election in SD22 from 2010. It is what it is. Just go vote if you live in SD06 and let everything else take care of itself.

Related Posts:

• Early voting ends in SD06
• It’s Sylvia versus Carol in the runoff
• Final SD06 early voting turnout