Early Voting in the 2020 Election is Outpacing the 2016 Election
Early voting in the 2020 General Election in Lubbock County continues to break records. On Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2020, more than 6,017 people went to the polls, about 565 more than on the same day of early voting in the 2016 election. That’s the most votes cast on Day 9 of early voting in Lubbock County, out-performing all of the past 4 general elections.
In fact, every day of early voting the 2020 General Election so far has seen more votes cast than on those same days in the past 4 general elections. More than 58,293 people have voted in Lubbock County as of Sept. 20, and 7,086 have voted by mail. In total, that’s about 36% of 183,427 registered voters in the county.
The increase in early voter turnout is not a phenomenon exclusive to Lubbock. According to the Texas Secretary of State website, the rest of Texas is also seeing a similar trend. As of Tuesday, Oct. 20, more than 5.3 million Texans had voted either in person or by mail, which is about 31.35% of the 17 million registered voters in the state.
In the 2016 General Election, about 8.9 million total votes were cast in Texas, making up about 59.39% of the 15.1 million registered voters in the state at that time, and Texas is currently on pace to reach 9 million early votes cast by the end of the early voting period, which doesn’t include votes cast on Election Day.
Texas leads the nation in early voting totals so far in the 2020 General Election with 5.3 million votes cast. California is in 2nd place, reporting 4.5 million votes, and Florida is in 3rd with 3.6 million votes. Across the country, just under 40 million votes have already been cast. In the 2016 General Election, by the time early voting was over, about 47 million votes had been counted.