Voter Turnout

The presumption is that if people don’t come out to vote for president, they won’t vote for anything, which means the turnout figures shown on the chart are the realistic ceilings for voter participation. Whether that would remain true if Texas’ electoral votes were actually in play is not clear. But Travis County’s overall turnout was in line with nationwide averages and past turnout patterns here, so it’s doubtful that local turnout was unusually low this year.

By now, it should be no surprise that Northwest and Southwest Travis County have the highest local turnout, and that the East and South/Southeast have the lowest. (Nationwide, African-American turnout reached record levels, but not here.) The low-ish turnout for Central Austin is not unprecedented; much of the Birkenstock Belt’s traditional power derives not from the quantity but the one-sidedness of its votes. (For example, in this election, in box 346 in Hyde Park, light rail won by 56.1% and Margo Frasier won by 62.4%, which is a lot better than the other sides did in their strong boxes.) But it has still been some time since the city center turned out at below the countywide average. Blame it on the rain.

Also noteworthy is the volume of early voting, which in a typical city election amounts to maybe one-third of the total balloting. We hold as a truism that early voters are more conservative, but that doesn’t quite jibe with the fact that East Austin — easily the town’s most Democratic sector — turned in more votes early than on Election Day. (Blame that on the rain, too.)

In reality, as the map shows, early voters are everywhere, and if that trend continues, the rightward tilt of the early vote will diminish. It’s also evident that if people vote early, campaign tactics will have to change; those expensive last-week TV buys will no longer move voters, as we suspect rail proponents may have now discovered.

This article appears in November 24 • 2000.