All right, Austin, you’ve apparently met my challenge. I said I wasn’t going to provide daily early voting turnout updates unless you gave me reason to do so. And you have.
Early voting in this year’s municipal elections – dominated by Austin’s city council races – is trending noticeably higher than last year’s, I suspect due to the race for mayor. The three-day numbers, with 2008 numbers in parentheses:
Day 1: 1,922 (1,765)
Day 2: 2,368 (1,685)
Day 3: 2,580 (1,803)
2009 3-day total: 6,870
2008 3-day total: 5,253
Bear in mind, that’s still puny compared to what I know you could be doing: In last year’s presidential election, the first three days saw 51,548 show up (possibly more than we’ll see in total for this election).
But hey, this is progress. Surely we can beat that paltry 8.25% turnout from last year.
Go vote!
This article appears in April 24 • 2009.