What do early voter counts show for high-profile Tarrant County elections?
Early voting for the May 3 local general elections began April 22, and there are some interesting turnout numbers around some hotly contested Tarrant County races.
Through the first three days of early voting, voting centers in the Keller school district, where residents are selecting candidates for three board seats, 2,521 total votes were cast at Keller Town Hall and the Summerglen and Golden Triangle branches of the Fort Worth Public Library.
That’s about 53% more than the 1,646 votes that were cast at the same locations during the same early voting period in 2023. Earlier this year, the five Keller school board members who live in the city propsed splitting the district along U.S. 377. In March, the district abandoned the plan, citing high costs.
While those figures reflect early voting numbers in far north Fort Worth and Keller, it should be noted that Tarrant County voters can vote at any of the county’s 49 polling locations.
In the Keller school district, candidates Scott Bruce, Marissa Bryce and Randy Campbell are vying for the Place 1 seat on the school board. The current seat holder, Micah Young, is not seeking re-election.
Jade Holbrook and Jennifer Erickson are challenging incumbent Joni Shaw Smith for Place 2, and incumbent Chelsea Kelly is campaigning against Ed Duncan and Nikki Paris for Place 3.
In Mansfield, where there’s a polarized mayoral race between incumbent Michael Evans and challenger Julie Short, early voting turnout is up 180% compared to the first three days in 2023.
That year, 787 early ballots were cast at Mansfield’s Vernon Newsom Stadium and the Tarrant County Subcourthouse. This year, 2,241 votes had been cast at those polling places, perhaps reflecting the attention the mayoral election has received.
Evans expressed frustration that the election had taken a partisan, right-versus-left tone, with Short actively campaigning with local Republican officials in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan mayoral race.
Early voting concludes April 29. Overall, there were 15,742 early in-person ballots cast across Tarrant County between April 22 and April 24, and 1,183 mail-in ballots were received during that time. Over the 10-day early voting period in 2023, a total of 104,576 ballots were cast.
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 2:29 PM.