Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen said the early voting turnout for this year’s municipal runoff elections is ahead of 2017 city runoff election as it heads into today’s final day.
Polls open at 8 a.m., and voters can visit any poll site to cast a ballot.
“When we looked at last year’s [numbers] through Saturday, we had 39,000 people vote in the runoff,” Callanen said Monday. “And when we finished through Saturday this election, we had 58,000. It was a nice uptick.”
Early voting started last Tuesday with 12,918 voters – the largest turnout San Antonio has seen on the first day of early voting in recent years, according to the Bexar County Elections Department.
The first six days of early voting each saw more than 10,000 voters cast ballots. On Monday, 10,285 people voted, and Callanen said she hoped voters would continue to show up on the final day. More than 68,000 have voted early as of Monday evening. In 2017, 69,503 people cast ballots during all seven days of early voting.
Callanen noted that this year’s numbers follow a trend of increased voter turnout the City has seen in the past two city runoff elections. In 2015, 98,000 people cast ballots in the runoff. In 2017, 99,000 people voted. The city is on track to exceed that number by election day, Callanen said.
“We’ve seen a higher turnout in the last two runoffs that we had for the city,” she said. “So if this one continues [on its path], we can honestly say we have a pattern. We went into this election planning on [turnout] being higher. We always plan based on our last elections.”
This year, 784,295 people are eligible to vote in the runoff election. The mayoral race and City Council Districts 2, 4, and 6 are on the June ballot.
Callanen reminded voters that as long as they are registered, they can cast a ballot.
“If they didn’t vote in May, they can still vote now,” she said.
Early voting continues until 8 p.m. Voters who get in line by 8 p.m. can stay in line to vote. Check out the Rivard Report election guide here.
