Early voting continues for the November 8 general election.
Turnout: Early voting counts are preliminary, unofficial and subject to revision, especially during the first couple of days. Well, the Day One numbers have been revised significantly downward.
Yesterday we reported that 789K voters statewide in person or by mail on Monday. The latest data indicates the number was 630K. It appears the cumulative number of returned mail ballots was added twice to the number of in person voters for each county.
This means that Day One turnout has decreased from 2020 and 2018 even more than we reported yesterday. Rather than revisit those figures here, we’ll move on to Day Two’s (Tues.) counts.
Statewide, 1.13M people have cast ballots in person (952K) or by mail (177K). Through Day Two in 2020, 1.9M people had voted in person (1.49M) or by mail (417K). So the statewide figures are down 41% overall with in person voters down 36% and absentee voters down 58%. Statewide, 6.32% of registered voters have already cast ballots, compared to 11.22% through Day Two of 2020. The better comparison might be to 2018, but only the 30 counties with the most RVs were required to report daily figures that year.
Looking at those Top 30* counties, 875K people have voted early through Day 2, down 25% from 2018 and 42% from 2020. In the five most populous counties – Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and Travis – a total of 429K people have voted already, down 28% from 2018 and 46% from 2020.
Voter Registration Litigation: The federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld new voter registration requirements, overturning a lower court decision setting aside the law for creating an unconstitutional burden on the right to register to vote. The three-judge panel ruled the plaintiffs, LULAC and Voto Latino, lacked standing because they had not been harmed by the law.
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