https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2008-02-20/594310/

Early Voting: Here Comes the Avalanche

By Lee Nichols, February 20, 2008, 10:22am, Newsdesk

In a meeting with the media last week, Travis County Clerk (and director of elections) Dana DeBeauvoir predicted the huge interest in this year's Democratic presidential race would produce an equally huge turnout at the polls: "I feel like we're running ahead of an avalanche," she said.

Get ready, Dana – the snow just broke loose. The first day of early voting yesterday saw 7,398 voters at the polls in Travis County, plus 671 more ballots by mail. That's 1.45% of the county's 556,939 registered voters. That's a whopping number for the first day of a primary.

"It looks like in comparison to the 2004 presidential primary, this is about five times as much," said elections division spokeswoman Mary Fero. The first day of that election's early voting was 1,625.

This just reinforces DeBeauvoir's plea to vote early – if this many people are already voting, turnout on election day could be crazy with long lines and frustrating delays, so do yourself a favor and get it over with now.

In the 2006 primary, only 6.93% turned out for the entirety of early voting, and in our last presidential primary – 2004, which Kerry and Bush had already wrapped up the nominations before Texas voted – 17.43% voted early. Multiply yesterday's turnout over the entire 11 days, and it adds up to 15.95%. Given that the first day is typically the slowest, and that turnout usually arcs upward all the way to the end, 2004's numbers will likely get blown away. (It will be a bigger challenge to top the 2004 general election, when 40.12% voted early and total turnout was 64.26% – 16,854 on the first day!)

Heaviest turnout: as usual, the Randalls at Research and Braker: 777 voters.

Lightest: The Round Rock ISD Performing Arts Center had only 39 voters. This is a new location of which you folks up north may not be aware. It's at 5800 McNeil Drive.

Fun trivia note: The very first person to ever cast a vote at the new Washington Mutual Bank site in Hancock Center was … me! I'm so proud. Ninety-two others followed me through WaMu's doors yesterday.