Trinna Stidom of Fort Worth has a plan to vote Saturday.
鈥淚 plan to have a couple bottles of water, some chips or crackers,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 [going to] be in comfortable clothes, comfortable shoes. And [just] take step one, step two, step one, step two, until I get to the poll.鈥�
All the preparation is in case she鈥檚 stuck in a long line.
Stidom will join about 6 million Texans who have already voted early. Early and mail voters so far have reached more than , a record pace.
Bruce Sherbet is elections administrator in nearby Collin County. He said despite high turnout, he hasn't seen any problems.
鈥淚n this county, for the last four or five days, we haven鈥檛 had waits really over 20 minutes anywhere. And we鈥檙e voting record numbers.鈥�
Collin County has seen over 40% of its registered voters cast ballots already. But those kinds of numbers are not unusual there. Sherbet said 83% of Collin County voters turned out early in 2016 and 81% in 2018.
鈥淲e have a history in this county of people really embracing and choosing to do early voting versus [waiting until] Election Day,鈥� he said.
So what does this mean for the outcome?
鈥淭he first few days of early voting, we saw a huge surge in 鈥� Democrat primary voters that were voting early or by mail,鈥� said Derek Ryan, a Republican political consultant. 鈥淎nd since those first few days, we鈥檝e seen Republican primary voters start showing up.鈥�
Ryan is working on federal and state races this election. He looks at who鈥檚 already turned out, and then . But at this point, we only know whether or not these voters participated in recent primaries; we don鈥檛 know who specifically they voted for.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e going to have some people that consider themselves Democrats who vote in the Republican primary for any number of reasons, and vice versa,鈥� Ryan said.
And according to Ryan鈥檚 analysis, more than a third of early voters so far have no history of voting in recent state or federal primaries. Voters aged 50 and over make up the majority of the votes cast, and those under 30 are about 11% of the votes to-date.
With so many variables this year 鈥� a pandemic, recession, multiple court cases over voting procedures, and a slew of competitive races 鈥� voters like Trinna Stidom are taking nothing for granted.
鈥淚鈥檓 not giving up, I鈥檓 not leaving. I plan to be there as early as a Saturday morning will allow me,鈥� she said.
If you can鈥檛 go on Saturday to early vote, you can do so until October 30. And then Election Day, of course, is November 3.
Find more info at .
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter .
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