HOUSTON — Early voting in Harris County is already smashing records for a midterm.
On Thursday, turnout so far in the 2018 midterm election already surpassed the total number of votes in the most recent midterm in 2014.
When the polls re-opened Thursday morning, Harris County was just 140 votes away, including in-person and mail-in ballots, from surpassing 2014’s total.
By 5:30 p.m., the number past the 688,018 voters who participated in the 2014 election
Had turnout not dropped countywide on Wednesday, most likely due at least partially to the rain, that old record would’ve been broken earlier.
Stan Stanart, Harris County Clerk, thinks most voters planning to vote have done so already, but the elections office is still planning for big numbers on Election Day. He believes more than 1.1 million people, nearly half of the county’s more than 2.3 million registered voters, will have turned out by the time the election ends.
For perspective, 688,018 people, or 33.65 percent of all registered voters, turned out for the 2014 midterm election. Voters set the record for turnout in Harris County during the 2016 Presidential election, with more than 1.3 million people casting their ballot.
“There’s always a little bit of a surge first thing in the morning, around lunchtime, then after work,” said Stanart, who expects lines to be minimal at other times. “Don’t wait 'til Friday, OK? I guarantee you, we will have some lines on Friday. We always have lines. Procrastinators show up on Friday, the last day of early voting.”
According to the latest turnout numbers through Wednesday, the five early voting sites with the lowest turnout so far are Galena Park Library, Big Stone Lodge in Spring, Kashmere Multi-Service Center in Northeast Houston, Hardy Senior Center in North Houston, and Crosby Branch Library.
Stanart says voters can move through the voting process faster by marking up their personalized sample ballot offered by the county in advance and bringing it with them to vote.
The last day of early voting is Friday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
For more information on where to vote and what to bring, browse through the KHOU Voter Guide.