Record 40% of registered voters cast ballots during early voting in Texas

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(The Center Square) – A record 40% of registered voters, 7.7 million people, voted during early voting in Texas, according to Secretary of State data. 

Instead of voting on one day, Election Day, Texans have 13 days to vote, 12 of which are during an early voting period. This year, early voting went from Oct. 19-30.

There are a record 19 million Texans registered to vote this election, according to Secretary of State data.

By comparison, in 2014, 4.7 million people voted, or 34% of registered voters, according to an analysis of election data by the Austin-based Ryan Data & Research firm. 

The company doesn’t use modeling information, only data from public SOS registration lists and a list of voters reported by each county on each day of early voting, the company says.

“More people voted early this year than all votes cast in 2014, but we also have five million more registered voters on the registration rolls this year than we did 12 years ago. We also were only 400,000 votes away from surpassing the total for 2022 as well,” Derek Ryan with Ryan Data explained in an emailed statement to The Center Square.

He also said that on Election Day, “we are going to see a record number of votes cast for a midterm election in Texas.”

By comparison, in 2022, 74% of registered voters voted early. In 2018, the ratio was 80%. In 2024, it was 85%, he said. The ratios were larger in these elections but there were fewer registered voters and the total numbers were less.

The majority of Texans who voted early are in

Harris County saw the highest number of early voters at more than one million, according to SOS data. The county is seen as a bellwether for political shifts in the state. Previously a Republican majority county, over the past 10 years it’s shifted left. The majority of voters polled say the state and country are heading in the wrong direction, The Center Square reported. Democrats are expected to make large gains this election despite Gov. Greg Abbott vowing to help turn the county “dark red.”

The next largest number of early votes were cast in the state’s largest counties: Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and Travis, according to SOS data. Tarrant County, the state’s last large county with a Republican majority, could flip blue on Election Day. 

Nearly half of all registered voters in Collin County voted early, according to the data. The county is home to Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who iwho trails in polling in the U.S. Senate race. 

The majority of people who voted early were women, 55%, compared to 42% of men.  

“Women having an advantage over men isn't out of the ordinary in Texas. There are almost one million more women registered than men. At the completion of early voting in 2018, women made up 54% of all votes cast,” Ryan notes.

Nearly 60% of voters over age 65 voted early, according to the data with nearly 2.5 million votes cast, or 32% of early votes cast. “This is a larger share than they had in 2024 after early voting (29%), but smaller than their share in 2022,” the analysis notes.

Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 made up nearly one million of the votes, or 13%.  

Hispanic voters accounted for nearly 20% of early voters, nearly 1.5 million.

When comparing early voting data to primary voter data, there are 2.7 million people who have not voted who are among the most likely voters, according to the analysis. In this category, Republicans have a 289,717-vote advantage over Democrats if they vote on Election Day, according to Ryan’s analysis. 

Early voting was not without controversy. 

The SOS was sued for problems with a new voter registration system, which officials acknowledged created a backlog of 500,000 registration applications not reaching county registrars. The issue was reportedly fixed ahead of early voting, The Center Square reported. This case is ongoing. 

In Harris County, several convicted felons were arrested over the weekend on charges of illegally voting, and last week county officials were sued for running “get out the vote” ads targeting voters by race. The Office of Attorney General investigated both cases. County officials agreed to stop running the ads and were blocked from running them again in the future, The Center Square reported.

In south Texas, an independent investigation found there were 3,500 defective voter registrations in south Texas. The region is where allegations of voter fraud have been made in Zapata County during the Democratic primary elections this year and in 2024, The Center Square reported. County officials who are currently under criminal investigation for alleged voter fraud are running for reelection Nov. 3.