Early Voting Heats Up With One Day to Go

A heated state Senate race with both Democratic candidates spending big and going negative, and an intensifying Republican presidential primary race fueled a strong early voter turnout in Bexar County on Thursday with voters experiencing actual waiting lines at poll sites in the afternoon. Eleven days of early voting will come to a close Friday at 8 p.m. Polls at the county’s 32 early voting sites will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Election Day voting sites will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Thursday evening’s nationally televised Republican presidential candidate debate included acrimonious exchanges between Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and likely will contribute to even better turnout for the final day of early voting. More Republicans, 42,325, have voted early than Democrats, 37,245, in Bexar County, with GOP voters turning out 9,282 voters versus 6,701 Democrats on Thursday.

How many of the county’s 977,730 registered voters are expected to vote in this presidential primary season? If early voting trends follow tradition, the answer is less than those that voted in 2008 when Barack Obama first ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, and more than in 2012 when he ran for re-election. That has surprised some election watchers who expected the highly competitive Republican presidential primary race to attract a large turnout of that party’s voters.

A fairly strong turnout also was expected among Democrats for their own presidential primary, and for the hotly-contested District 26 Texas Senate race between incumbent Sen. José Menéndez and challenger Trey Martinez Fischer. The contest is a bitter rematch of the 2015 special election won by Menéndez after former Sen. Leticia Van de Putte stepped down to make an unsuccessful run for San Antonio mayor. Martinez Fischer has given up his Texas House seat to engage Menéndez in the rematch.

“I’m never happy to hear there is a line of people having to wait to vote, but I can’t help but smile,” said Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen, “It’s about time we had lines in Bexar County. Today (Thursday) was a huge pickup. The last two days are always huge. We’ve already had 11,988 vote by 5 p.m, with three hours to go, as many people as voted all day yesterday.”

Thursday’ combined total was 15, 983 voters. Once again, early voting sites on the city’s Northside drew far more voters than the inner city sites.

Republican primary voters have a lot of names at top of their ballot. There are 13 candidates on the presidential ballot, along with the option of passing on all 13 names and voting to send uncommitted delegates to the July 18-21 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Seven of the candidates have withdrawn from the race. Another, Elizabeth Grey, is a mystery candidate nobody seems to know. It’s the race between frontrunner Trump and Texas Cruz that should animate Republican voters to turn out.

“Ted Cruz Fights in Texas, Hoping it Won’t be his Alamo,” read a Thursday headline on the New York Times home page.

Some thought the presence of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on the Democratic presidential ballot would energize young voters to turn out in force as they did in 2008 for Obama. That has not happened. Early voters who are 18-24 years old accounted for only 3.3% of the total vote, compared to 67.9% who are 55 or older. Even the broader 18-34 year old vote only equals 10.6% of the total. Unless more young people begin voting in local, state and national elections, it will become an act of civic engagement practiced by a steadily diminishing percentage of citizens.

Early voting represented 51.48% of the total vote in the 2008 presidential primary elections, and it grew to 57.19% by the 2012 presidential primary elections. Since then, early voting has held steady at 55-60% of the total vote.

“Historically, Bexar County has really embraced early voting, and we do count on that high percentage of people voting early every time now,” Callanen said. “The turnout in ’08, when we didn’t have an incumbent president, was a phenomenal number. In 2012 it fell off the cliff. This one is dead between those two.

To find your Election Day voting site by street address, click here. To find your voting site by registration data, click here. Voters need to show a valid photo ID to vote.

Primary Election, March 1, 2016

BALLOTS CAST THIS DATE 02/25/2016

	DEMOCRATIC		REPUBLICAN
Early Voting Locations	Daily Total Votes	Previous Total Votes	Total Votes TO DATE	Daily Total Votes	Previous Total Votes	Total Votes TO DATE
Bexar County Elections	169	436	605	50	192	242
Bexar County Justice Center	167	1000	1167	161	595	756
Brookhollow Library	298	1540	1838	957	3765	4722
Claude Black Center	184	880	1064	9	40	49
Cody Library	318	1618	1936	503	1885	2388
Converse City Hall	118	494	612	167	488	655
Copernicus Community Center	99	409	508	36	124	160
East Central ISD Admin	62	175	237	134	400	534
Encino Branch Library	99	516	615	450	1524	1974
Fair Oaks Ranch City Hall	45	217	262	367	1145	1512
Great Northwest Library	359	1418	1777	393	1565	1958
Henry A Guerra, Jr. Library	204	923	1127	147	513	660
John Igo Library	252	995	1247	517	1562	2079
Johnston Library	152	575	727	139	560	699
Julia Yates Semmes Library	282	1167	1449	552	2066	2618
Las Palmas Library	231	1438	1669	54	200	254
Leon Valley city Hall	159	439	598	182	472	654
Lion’s Field	318	1678	1996	301	1545	1846
Maury Maverick Library	234	1379	1613	495	1564	2059
McCreless Library	258	1173	1431	157	496	653
Memorial Library	191	838	1029	67	178	245
Mission Library	154	737	891	90	263	353
Northside Activity Center	236	976	1212	231	619	850
Olmos Park City Hall	157	551	708	217	839	1056
Parman Library @ Stone Oak	156	768	924	684	2307	2991
Precinct 1 Satellite Office	110	517	627	50	150	200
Shavano Park City Hall	159	601	760	613	1986	2599
Somerset High School	28	98	126	52	148	200
South Park Mall	258	1247	1505	79	383	462
Tobin Library @ Oakwell	250	1069	1319	431	2032	2463
Universal City City Hall	127	502	629	353	1107	1460
University of Texas at San Antonio	187	1045	1232	104	393	497
Windcrest Takas Park	133	587	720	239	751	990
Wonderland of the Americas@Crossroads	547	2538	3085	301	1186	1487
Total in Person	6701	30544	37245	9282	33043	42325

Voting graphic courtesy of Bexar County Elections Department

Featured image: Campaign mailers reflect the bitter rematch between Sen. José Menéndez and challenger Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer in the District 26 Senate Democratic primary race.

Early Voting Heats Up With One Day to Go

Primary Election, March 1, 2016

BALLOTS CAST THIS DATE 02/25/2016

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Robert Rivard