From the inbox:
Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart announced within minutes after the polls opened this morning, that Harris County crossed the 700,982 voter benchmark setting a new record for early voters by personal appearance.
With essentially two full days of Early Voting left for the November 8, 2016 Election, the record established during the 2012 November Election is expected to be shattered as an additional 170,000 to 190,000 voters are anticipated to vote by the end of Friday.
Of the 123,954 mail ballots that were mailed, 89,271 have been returned as of Wednesday. Stanart, the chief election official of the County, anticipates that over 100,000 mail ballots will ultimately be received by the 7 p.m. deadline on election day.
“Incredible turnout for a historic election, said Stanart. “I expect the total number of early voters for this election, including mail ballots received, will get close to the one million mark by the end of the early voting period.”
The early voting period ends Friday, November 4. Until then, the 46 Harris County Early Voting locations will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. All voters in line at 7 p.m. will be allowed to cast their ballot.
“There is still time to vote early,” concluded Stanart. “Do your homework. Then, go vote.”
To obtain the early voting schedule, a list of acceptable credentials to vote at the polling location, their personal sample ballot and other election information, voters may visit the Harris County Clerk’s website at www.HarrisVotes.com or call 713.755.6965.
That was sent yesterday morning, so we’re down to just one day to vote early, today. Stanart’s projection for the last two days, including another 10K or so mail ballots, would put us close to a million early votes. That’s just a lot, I don’t know how else to say it. As far as Election Day itself goes, we had 427K on Election Day in 2008, and 442K on E-Day in 2012, so take your guesses as to what this means for this year. I’d put the range at 400K to 500K, but I won’t be surprised if we’re outside of that, one way or the other.
No daily EV report before I went to bed last night, so I can’t say if we’re on track for Stanart’s projection or not. As always, I will update when I have the file.
UPDATE: Here’s your Day 11 EV report and your tracker spreadsheet, which will be updated later. There were 76,878 in-person votes and 2,546 mail ballots, bring the overall total up to 869,392. A million early votes is probably out of reach, but we should get to 950,000, maybe a bit more.