“The last day of early voting is the absolute busiest day,” said Jana Henderson, Bell County election coordinator. “There probably will be a line to stand in, but it will still be shorter than the lines on Election Day.”
The turnout here has been historic with more than a third of the 160,000 registered voters choosing to cast ballots during the first 11 days of the period. Registered voters in the county eclipsed the previous high total of 42,565 early votes two days ago.
The new high mark of 54,706 would climb above 60,000 today with just an average turnout.
“I think people who stood in line during the primary may have said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do that again,’” County Judge Jon Burrows said.
Bell County’s high turnout mirrors what is happening in the most populated counties in the state.
Brisk early voting has surpassed the state’s 2004 presidential election total of 2.4 million early voters in the state’s 15 largest counties.
The secretary of state’s office, which tallies the number of early votes in the 15 most populous counties before the election, reported Thursday that in those counties 2.7 million people have cast early ballots.
That includes 2.5 million early ballots cast in person and 186,803 by mail. Those numbers were through Wednesday’s balloting, the latest statewide figures available.
Overall, in the 2004 election 3.7 million people cast early ballots in Texas.
Secretary of State Hope Andrade is not yet projecting total voter turnout for this election. In the last presidential election, when Republican George W. Bush faced Democrat John Kerry in 2004, 7.3 million, or 56 percent of registered voters, participated.
In Bell County, where paper ballots are still used, the early voting period has been busy but not controversial.
“Early voting has gone exceptionally well,” Mrs. Henderson said. “We hope it’s a precursor to Election Day. We’ve been really busy but we’ve had numerous calls about how the lines have been shorter. People have generally been happy.”
That was not the case during the March primary, which had problems with ballot shortages and long lines.
The possibility of ballot shortages on Tuesday is remote, Mrs. Henderson said.
“We still have back up early voting ballots, so I don’t foresee that to be a problem,” she said.
In other parts of the state, early voting has not gone as well.
State Rep. Joe Deshotel, a Democrat from Beaumont, wrote to Andrade this week complaining that when he cast an early ballot and pressed a review button, his electronic voting machine showed him voting for two Republican statewide judges, even though he didn’t select them.
Deshotel said he had to back all the way out and start over with the electronic system to ensure his votes were accurately reflected.
“My own personal experience on the first day of early voting was troubling,” Deshotel wrote.
He said he will urge the Legislature to ban the use of electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper record of each vote at the time it is cast.
Bell County is the 17th most populated county in Texas, according to the latest census figures.
Election Day is Tuesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
