Travis County Early Voting Breaks the Midterm Record: More Than 405,000 Ballots and Lines Up to Two Hours on the Final Day
The county passed its 2018 early-vote benchmark of 368,000 as seven sites stayed open until 10 p.m. on Friday - and the voters in the longest lines said the wait was the point.
Travis County closed early voting on Friday with the biggest midterm early turnout in its history. More than 405,000 county voters had cast ballots through in-person voting and mail-in submissions as of Friday evening, according to Texas Secretary of State data reported by FOX 7 Austin - surpassing the previous benchmark set in the 2018 midterms, when just over 368,000 residents voted early.
The record came with a wait. Voters across the county braved lines up to two hours long on the final day, and seven polling sites extended their hours until 10 p.m. to accommodate the surge. County officials made at least 45 early voting locations available, but heavy afternoon and evening crowds produced substantial delays throughout the area. Liana Ayala put her wait at about an hour and a half.
For first-time voter Alex Shapiro, casting a ballot took nearly two hours after an initial attempt to find a faster-moving queue failed. 'I hope that it doesn't deter a lot of people from not voting, because I'll be honest, when I was standing in line and looking at how slow it was moving, I had a lot of doubts about waiting, sticking it out for an hour and a half, two hours,' Shapiro told FOX 7. He came around to the other reading of the line: 'I realize in the grand scheme of things that the fact that I had to wait two hours to vote means that there were two hundred, three hundred people voting before me. And that's so important.'
Voters cited competitive statewide contests - including the race for governor - as the primary factor that brought them out. What remains now is Election Day itself: Tuesday, November 3, with polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at vote centers across the county, where Travis County voters may cast a ballot at any site. Election officials recommend checking the Travis County Elections website before heading out - it carries real-time wait-time tracking across all county vote centers, the tool Friday's voters could have used a little more of.
