Tarrant County early voting tops 730,000, surpasses 2016 overall turnout
More than 730,000 Tarrant County residents have either voted in-person or mailed in a ballot during the early voting period, surpassing the county’s 2016 overall turnout of 682,740 ballots cast.
Tarrant County reported that a record 666,752 people had voted through Friday, the last day of early voting. Another 64,895 absentee ballots had been returned out of the 89,000 the county has sent out, according to county records. In 2016, the county reported that about 518,000 residents voted early either in person or through mail.
The turnout so far represents 61% of the county’s registered voters. Polls were scheduled to close at 7 p.m. but long lines delayed the final early voting turnout totals.
By the time votes are counted Tuesday night, county election administrator Heider Garcia said he would not be surprised if more than 900,000 people vote in the county, accounting for about 75% of registered voters.
Tarrant County early voting follows a statewide trend. More than 9.7 million Texans have voted. In 2016, the overall turnout was 8,969,226.
Gov. Greg Abbott extended early voting by a week because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Garcia said the county handled the high turnout as best as it could during the pandemic. Overall, Garcia said, it has been successful. It made sure safety precautions were in place so that people felt comfortable.
But the early voting period did not go as smooth as planned. Three locations were shut down for a day because workers tested positive for COVID-19. Voters complained about a lack of safety measures.
On Tuesday, Garcia informed county commissioners that some mail-in ballots would have to be redone because of a scanning error with bar codes. At first it was estimated that a ballot board would have to redo 20,000 ballots, but now Garcia believes the board will have to redo 12,000.
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 8:13 PM.
