Galveston County seeing record voter turnout

Four days into early voting, Galveston County is already seeing record turnout. As of the morning of Oct. 16, 48,612 residents have voted in person, which represents 21% of the 228,747 registered voters in the county, Assistant Elections Administrator Susan Williams told Community Impact Newspaper.

"Certainly, [we are] breaking records for voting," she said. "It’s greater than we ever voted before in an election.”

Another 6,942 have voted by mail as of Oct. 16, Williams said, which means that a total of at least 55,554 registered Galveston County voters have cast ballots—over 24% of the county's total registered voters.

On the first day of early voting, Oct. 13, 17,770 ballots were cast in person in the county. On the first day of early voting for the November 2016 presidential elections, 11,106 ballots were cast in person, Williams said.

That means 6,664 more ballots—a 60% increase—were cast in person on the first day of early voting this presidential election than on the first day of the previous one, Williams said.

Williams did not have first-day mail-in ballot numbers for the November 2016 elections immediately available.

In 2012, 7,365 voters cast ballots in person on the first day of early voting. In 2008, that number was 7,021, Williams said.

"It looks like it’s grown every presidential election since 2008, anyway," she said.

Williams did not have projections for how many might vote in person on Election Day.

"This is a very special and different year," she said.