As early voting comes to a close, the historic voter turnout of Harris County is reflected in the voter turnout at locations throughout the Lake Houston area.
In the five early voting locations in the area, more than 90,000 people have cast their ballots from Oct. 13-29. The most popular location is Kingwood Community Center, which has received a total of 25,223 ballots.
With 2.48 million people registered to vote in Harris County, at least 54% have already cast ballots either via mail or in person. More than 1.3 million county residents cast ballots throughout the entire November 2016 election, but this year, that number was surpassed Oct. 29 with one day of early voting remaining, in addition to Election Day, Nov. 3.
Roxanne Werner, director of community relations for the Harris County Clerk's Office, said there are numerous factors that have contributed to the turnout, including the fact that it is a presidential election and the various programs the clerk’s office has initiated, such as drive-thru voting.
“For this year, we have an unprecedented amount of access to the polls; we have more days of early voting than we've ever had before [and] more locations to early vote than we've ever had before,” Werner said. “We have 120 locations, so that's triple the amount that we had in 2016.”
Werner said that in addition to making 10 drive-thru voting locations available in Harris County, the clerk’s office has extended voting hours to 10 p.m. Oct. 27-29 and will allow 23-hour voting Oct. 30, the last day of early voting.
