Tx Voting Totals - 9 Days In

Early voting this year in Texas started with a bang, and hasn't let up since. After 9 days of the 12-day early voting period, we have just about equaled the total for all 12 days of 2004's early voting. That looks great, especially since voting usually picks up in the final three days rather than tapering off.

After the first 9 days of early voting, the absentee and early vote total for Texas' largest 15 counties in 2008 stands at 2,390,051. That's 28.25% of all registered voters in those counties. In 2004, the total after 9 days was 1,534,963 or 18.87% of the total registered voters. That's an increase of 855,088, or 55.71%.

In 2004, for the entire 12 day early voting period in those 15 counties, there were 2,412,952 or 29.66% of all registered voters. Since 2008's total already stands at 28.25%, it's clear that we're going to go well past 2004's total early vote. If it just maintains the 55.71% increase (and it might even do better), then 2008's total early vote would be 3,757,208. That would be 44.41% of the total registered voters in the 15 counties.

In 2004, the early vote percentage of 29.66% turned into a total turnout through election day of slightly more than 56% of all registered voters. Just think of what a 44.41% early vote could turn into! I think that a minimum of 70% of registered voters will vote this year, and that total could easily climb to over 80%.

That's the kind of turnout that Texas Democrats pray for. If the turnout tops 70%, then all bets are off and Texas could actually become a blue state. This election is starting to really get exciting, even in Texas. Here are the combined early vote and absentee totals for the 15 counties through the first 9 days:

Harris....................490,680(25.29%)
Dallas.....................343,414(28.42%)
Tarrant.................304,404(31.73%)
Bexar.....................280,283(30.11%)
Travis....................202,884(33.30%)
Collin......................145,761(34.33%)
El Paso.....................76,204(19.61%)
Denton...................111,312(31.05%)
Hidalgo....................56,964(18.66%)
Fort Bend..............107,696(36.02%)
Montgomery...........71,730(29.65%)
Williamson...............72,987(31.46%)
Nueces.....................45,521(22.88%)
Galveston................53,552(28.33%)
Cameron..................26,659(15.30%)