SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County voters have been coming out in record numbers to cast an early ballot in person.
A Bexar County Elections Department spokeswoman said Monday and Tuesday’s turnouts of 46,903 and 48,067 were both county records.
Presidential elections traditionally draw bigger turnouts. KSAT asked Jon Taylor, UTSA professor and Political Science & Geography Department chair, about why this year’s presidential election is different.
“It could be, again, just the voter enthusiasm,” Taylor, who also noted that polls appeared to be busy statewide, said. “Issues that are related directly to what voters are thinking about, be it reproductive choice, be it the border, be it the economy. Those are driving voters. It’s obvious.”
Following KSAT’s interview with Taylor on Wednesday morning, another 47,739 Bexar County voters cast their ballots on Wednesday.
However, voters had sent in more mail-in ballots at this point in both 2016 and 2020, which would make the turnout appear less impressive.
KSAT used historical data from the Texas Secretary of State’s office to compare the current election to the previous two.
IN-PERSON ONLY
In terms of raw numbers, early voting in 2024 is heads above the previous two elections.
After Bexar County posted its Wednesday totals for in-person voting, 28,500 more voters had turned out in-person than during the same timeframe in 2016 and 33,700 more than in 2020.
Bexar County has been steadily adding voters to its rolls, though. The big jumps in daily, in-person voting are less drastic than they appear when measured as a percentage of overall turnout.
- 2016 — 1,045,360 registered voters
- 2020 — 1,189,373 registered voters (+144,013)
- 2024 — 1,295,580 registered voters (+106,207)
Still, the in-person turnout of 11% at the end of the second day nearly even with the 10.9% in-person turnout in 2016 but above 2020′s 9.2% turnout.
IN-PERSON & MAIL COMBINED
Once mail ballots are included, Bexar County’s 2024 early vote turnout becomes less impressive and falls behind previous years.
Wednesday’s mail ballot totals were not immediately available on the Secretary of State’s website. But, according to the raw numbers, there were 13,500 more ballots cast in the first two days of the 2020 election compared to this year, thanks to 52,600 votes cast by mail.
However, the 2024 election has seen 16,600 more ballots so far than at the same point in 2016.
Given the 250,000 voters added to the Bexar County rolls over the past eight years, though, the overall turnout in the 2024 election falls shy of both the 2016 and 2020 elections.
NOTE - Texas added extra six days of Early Voting in 2020 due to the pandemic