How excited are Fort Worth residents about this election? Over 14% have already voted
The Nov. 3 election is still 19 days away, but more than 14% of Fort Worth-area voters have already cast their ballots.
Tarrant County residents continued to crowd into voting centers on Thursday, the third day of early voting.
The region has already set a record for three days of early voting turnout.
As of 6 p.m. Thursday, 132,645 people had visited one of Tarrant County’s 50 early voting sites since early voting began Tuesday. Those early voters, combined with the 36,379 Tarrant County residents who have already returned mail-in ballots, amount to a total of 169,024 ballots completed so far.
That translates into about 14.1% of the eligible population that has already voted. Tarrant County has 1,196,407 registered voters.
The three-day total could climb a bit more Thursday evening. Election officials said people who were in line to vote when the polls closed at 5 pm. would be allowed to vote.
For the third day in a row, several of Tarrant County’s 50 early voting sites reported wait times of more than an hour — although at other locations the wait was much shorter. Before heading to the polls, residents can visit the Tarrant County election office’s website, where an interactive map shows wait times at the voting centers.
Tarrant County residents can vote at any of the 50 voting centers, regardless of where in the county they live.
In 2016, when President Trump beat Hillary Clinton, a then-record 154,124 people voted in the first three days, including mail-in ballots.
In the 2018 election, which was a non-presidential year but featured Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke battling incumbent U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, 142,453 people voted in the first three days in Tarrant County, including mail-in ballots and in-person visits to early voting sites.
O’Rourke lost his Senate bid, although he beat Cruz in most of the state’s largest metro areas, including traditionally-Republican Tarrant County.
