HOUSTON, Texas–Early voting for the Texas Primary Run-off election ended on Friday with a very low total turnout. After five days of early voting, the total turnout for both the Democrat and Republican run-offs was 313,878 or about 3.62 percent of registered voters. This compares poorly to the Primary early voting in which nearly 7 percent or 592,153 voters voted early. These totals include voting early by mail and in-person.
These numbers come from a report from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office and reflect the voting numbers of the top fifteen most populous counties. While mail in votes remained relatively even between the Primary and the run-off (82,712 in Primary vs 79,826 in run-off), in-person voted dropped by nearly half (509,411 in Primary vs 234,052 in run-off).
Democrats faired particularly poorly with nine of the fifteen counties reporting well less than one percent turnout. The low turnout could favor a candidate like Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Kesha Rogers, a black female candidate who was discriminated against by the Democratic Party of Texas who refused to list her on the official website as a run-off candidate. The Democrats only had two contested state-wide races in the run-off. The highest percentage turnout for the Democrats was Cameron County at 3.7 percent.
With more contested races, Republican turnout, while still very low, was significantly better than the Democrats. The top five counties with the highest percentage of Republican voter turnout were; Montgomery County (7.44 percent), Galveston County (5.10 percent), Collin County (4.19 percent), Tarrant County (3.21 percent) and Harris County (2.95 percent). Harris County had far and away the largest number of early voters with 59,122 voters in the Republican runoff.
Tuesday, May 27th, is the final day to vote in this year’s Primary Run-off election. You do not need to have voted in the March 4th Primary Election to vote in this runoff election. However, if you did vote in the Primary election, you can only vote in the runoff election for the same party’s election you voted in during the Primary on March 4th. If you did not vote in the Primary, you may vote in either party’s (but only one party) runoff election. If you voted in the Republican Primary, you can only vote in the Republican Runoff. If you voted in the Democrat Primary, you can only vote in the Democrat Runoff.
Voters interested in identifying candidates for the Republican Primary Election are suggested to visit the official Republican Party of Texas (RPT) website. The Texas Democratic Party offers similar information on its website as well.
Early Voting Locations:
Following are links for voter information for Republican Primary voting locations in the major counties where information could be found. For other counties, contact your local County Clerk or Election Administrators Office.
Harris County – Election Day Voting Locations
Montgomery County – Election Day Voting Locations
Fort Bend County – Election Day Voting Locations
Galveston County – Election Day Voting Locations
Dallas County – Election Day Voting Locations
Tarrant County – Election Day Voting Locations
Denton County – Election Day Voting Locations
Collin County – Election Day Voting Locations
Bexar County – Election Day Voting Locations
Travis County – Election Day Voting Locations
Lubbock County – Election Day Voting Locations
Randall County – Election Day Voting Locations
Cameron County – Election Day Voting Locations
Hidalgo County – Election Day Voting Locations
El Paso County – Election Day Voting Locations
Other Counties – Texas Secretary of State Office
Voters are reminded, the new voter ID Law is in effect for this election. If you have questions about acceptable forms of identification for voting please visit the Secretary of State’s VoteTexas website for more information.
Follow Bob Price on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX
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