With three days to go, early voter turnout in Harris County has already set a new record for off-year elections. The first week of early voting yielded 82,149 votes, compared to 52,170 in the first week of 2013 and 30,463 in the first week of 2009, which is the last time a Houston mayoral race took place without an incumbent. Two more big days of early voting on Oct. 26 and 27 brought the count up to 114,467, breaking the previous record—just over 109,000—for the entire early voting period in 2013. Part of the increase can be tied to the overall increase in registered voters in the county. Harris County leads the state with 2,054,215 registered voters, up from 1,967,881 in the 2013 election. Roughly 1,076,000 of the registered voters in Harris County reside outside of the City of Houston. County officials say they were working hard to register voters before the Oct. 5 deadline and continue to spread awareness about statewide voter ID laws implemented in 2013. “We’ve ramped up our outreach effort, hosting more than 15 voter registration drives, registering voters at the U.S. Naturalization Ceremony and visiting local schools and assisting high school seniors to register to vote,” Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Mike Sullivan said. “This election is incredibly important as we will be deciding on the next mayor of Houston [as well as] ballot initiatives like the property tax homestead exemption increase.” A total of 260,437 votes were cast in 2013, or 13.32 percent of eligible voters. Voter turnout was 8.83 percent in 2011 and 13.68 percent in 2009. Election Day is Nov. 3. Visit www.harrisvotes.com for more information.