Roughly 759,000 votes were cast in Bexar County in the 2024 general election, or about 58.7% of the county’s total registered voters, said Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen.
That’s compared to 65.1% turnout in the 2020 presidential election, when voting by mail was easier and early voting was extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Leading up to this year’s presidential race voter registration numbers in fast-growing Bexar County were up 9.7% from 2020, leading Callanen to predict that roughly 900,000 total votes would be cast.
Instead, both the raw number of votes cast — as well as the percent of registered voter participation — were both down from 2020.
In 2024 about 14,000 fewer people voted than in 2020, despite an addition of more than 100,000 new registered votes in that span.
Even after early voting came in lower than expected, the Elections Department was still projecting about 275,000 voters on Election Day this year, believing voters were waiting.
But on Election Day, Bexar County ended up getting 150,000 votes.
There were no reported issues or threats in getting vote totals, Callenen said, but there were “glitches” at two schools that delayed results.
Election officials at Ball Elementary and the Copernicus Center on the city’s southeast side didn’t follow closing procedures, she said.
It slowed down the timing of results because the elections office had to contact the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, as well as the school’s police department, to set up the equipment again and harvest the votes, then follow officials back to the elections department on South Frio Street.
Callenen confirmed the 2024 election was her last as elections administrator. The national search for a new county elections administrator hasn’t started.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the total number of registered voters in Bexar County.
