How’s it going in your state?
Early voting in Texas begins with lines, strong turnout
AUSTIN, Texas — Early voting opened across Texas on Monday, bringing long lines and record first-day midterm turnout in Houston and complaints about outdated technology slowing people casting ballots elsewhere.
It took Harris County, which includes Houston, less than six hours to set a new opening day of early voting record for midterm elections with more than 36,000 votes cast — exceeding the around 26,000 ballots cast there during the 2010 midterms, county clerk Stan Stanart told the Houston Chronicle.
Dallas County was also flirting with surpassing the first-day turnout of 2016 — an unusual feat since turnout in presidential election years is typically higher.
The Early Voting ExplosionSome states are already reporting presidential-level turnout for this midterm election.
While Election Day is still just over two weeks away, more than 5 million people have already cast ballots in this year’s midterm general election, with a number of states experiencing record levels of early voting.
In Indiana, home to one of the most crucial U.S. Senate contests in the country, residents in centrally located Hamilton County are casting ballots at a rate equal to the 2016 presidential election. In Minnesota, which is hosting a trio of competitive U.S. House races, early voting statewide has thus far surpassed ballots returned in 2016.
And in Georgia, which is featuring one of the most competitive governor’s races of the year, ballots are being returned at three times the rate of the 2014 midterm.
More than half the country is already voting and experts say the surge ahead of Election Day leads to one likely conclusion: Overall turnout is going to spike…
Early voting sets presidential pace (North Carolina)
After five days of early voting, including the first weekend, more than 450,000 people have voted, according to statistics compiled Monday by Catawba College Professor Michael Bitzer, one of North Carolina’s authorities on politics and voting.
Those numbers are a lot more like 2016 than 2014, let alone the last time North Carolina had a “blue moon” election like this year’s election – a ballot without a presidential, gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race.
I’ll be able to tell with an in-person view how things are going in this county, but not until the first of the month. That’s when my temp job at the Elections Office starts. But it looks like the Blue Wave has begun.
I have the feeling we’re not seeing the whole picture yet. I think it’s obvious that many people, both those who support Trump and those who oppose him, are more fired up than usual for this mid-term election. And this extra enthusiasm is motivating people to not only vote but to vote early.
But once this initial wave of enthusiastic voters passes through, we may fall back to the usual levels.
I think walk-in voting started in Hawaii today. But I received my absentee ballot in the mail last week and mailed it back on Thursday night.
Early voting started in my area last week, and most sites are at the public libraries. I’m a library volunteer and was there on the first day; at one point, we had a line, and people have been carting books out of the self-service bookstore by the armload as a result.
I personally voted absentee.
My local news has reported good turnout so far, at all locations.
Millions Have Voted Early in the Midterms. Here’s What That Means — and What It Doesn’t.
Early voting for the midterm elections has begun in states across the country, and enthusiasm — and voter turnout — both appear to be high, with hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots arriving in Florida and voters lining up around the block in Texas.
Turnout has surged among Republicans, Democrats and independents, according to poll data. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than seven million people had voted early, according todata compiled by Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida who studies elections.
“If these patterns persist, we could see a turnout rate at least equaling the turnout rate in 1966, which was 48 percent, and if we beat that then you have to go all the way back to 1914, when the turnout rate was 51 percent,” he said. “We could be looking at a turnout rate that virtually no one has ever experienced.”
