Reading this story gave me an idea for how to talk about early voting so far compared to 2020.
The first day of early voting for El Paso County’s general election drew 31% fewer voters than the record-setting 2020 race.
El Paso County had 23,678 mail and in-person voters on Monday, down from 34,118 in 2020. Most of the decline was in mail ballots, which spiked to a record high during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Even with decreased voting, county election officials reported occasional lines of 45 minutes or more as people waited to vote.
[…]
Women made up just over 51% of first-day early voters this year, down from 55% at the same time in 2020, according to an El Paso Matters analysis of county voting data. That decline was driven by the sharp drop-off of mail-in voters. Such voters are mostly over 65 years old, and El Paso has far more women voters in that age group because women live longer than men, on average.
Just under half of first-day early voters this year were age 65 or older. That’s down from 53% at the same point in 2020, largely because of fewer mail ballots that are mostly restricted to older voters by Texas law.
First, the drop in mail ballots that I noted yesterday appears to be a broader phenomenon than just Harris County. I think we can reasonably conclude that 2020 was the anomaly, driven by the pandemic, and that what we are seeing this year is mostly a return to normal, with a further drop in Republicans voting by mail thanks to their cult leader candidate. (Again, certain constituencies in Western North Carolina excepted.)
It’s easy to look at the Day One reports from this year and 2020 and ask why is it that even the in-person tally is down a bit, especially in the context of there being more registered voters. I think this too may be a COVID artifact. Let me start with my insight, which is to consider the overall daily average of in person voters for the years of interest. Here again are the EV reports, Day Two for 2024 and final reports otherwise:
I’m going all the way back this time. Here now is the average number of in person voters for each of the past years, with the number of early voting days included:
Year #Days Total EV Avg EV
===============================
2008 12 678,312 56,526
2012 12 700,216 58,351
2016 12 882,580 73,548
2020 18 1,264,811 105,401
For each of the first four days in 2020, that first rambunctious week of early voting, there were over 100K in person voters each day. From that point forward, the maximum number was 86,734, achieved on the last day. If you subtract out the first week, the total number of in person voters for the remaining 14 days was 811,174, or an average of 57,941 per day, basically 2008-12 numbers. To say the least, that is very different.
Now of course, the 553,637 people who showed up in the first four days count as well. The point I’m making is that this pace wasn’t maintained – hell, it couldn’t have been, we’d have run out of registered voters before the EV period ended. So since we can’t do a day by day comparison, let’s compare the averages, to see if 2024 if ahead of the 2020 pace or not. The drop in mail voters, while notable, is small enough in context to not be that important, and besides I’d expect many of those folks to vote in person anyway.
As for Day Two 2024, we had 3,470 mail ballots and 115,878 in person voters. That’s a total of 119,318 for the day and 272,808 overall. The in person total for Tuesday slightly edges out Day Two 2020, which had 115,604 in person voters. It’s too soon to calculate an average for 2024, but keeping pace like this with 2020 is cool. Have you voted yet?
UPDATE: On the other hand…
After one day of early voting in Bexar County, turnout has “shattered previous records,” according to the Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen — roughly 41% more in-person votes were cast Monday than on the first day of the 2020 presidential election.
Voters cast a total of 46,820 in-person ballots during an 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. window on the first day of early voting in a county of roughly 1.3 million registered voters.
Day two is also already off to busy start.
“We continue to break previous records regarding voter turnout at Bexar County Elections polls,” Callanen said in a statement Tuesday morning. “This morning, we had 6,000-plus [voters] in the first hour open.”
The elections department already had reason to suspect local voters were fired up about the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, as voter registration numbers soared close to deadline earlier this month.
Bexar had higher Day One turnout in 2016 than it did in 2020. That’s a little weird, but that’s how it goes sometimes. I’ll be sticking with the averages versus the daily numbers for Harris County.
UPDATE: And Tarrant County checks in.
Tarrant County voters were not deterred by long lines at local polling sites throughout the first day of early voting. This election, they said, is too important to ignore.
More than 58,400 residents cast their ballots for national, state and local races on Oct. 21 as the two-week early voting period started prior to the Nov. 5 election, according to counts released by the county’s elections office. That number represents a 38% increase over the first day of early voting in 2020 when 42,343 voters participated in-person.
So two up, two not up. Maybe some places started stronger in 2020, who knows. I’ll be watching.
FWIW, there weren’t any weather issues to affect voting in Bexar and Tarrant Counties on Oct 13, 2020. No rain and the high temps were 89° (San Antonio) and 82° (Fort Worth).
I don’t have any specific knowledge of why they are different.
There are still get out the vote events that you can volunteer for, training is provided. I have participated in a number of these events. You will like yourself better for getting out and helping out.
https://www.harrisdemocrats.org/