We have now passed the combined number of In-Person Voters plus Mail Ballots Received for the November 2010 and November 2014 General Elections. I also anticipate that we will pass the percentages in those same categories for those 2010 and 2014 elections on Tuesday Nov. 1st.
Going into this election I was a bit skeptical that we would reach the same Early Voting numbers that we had for the November 2018 General Election, because 2018 was exceptionally outside of the norm for Gubernatorial elections. If I had to guess at this point, I think we may indeed fall just a little bit short of those 2018 numbers, but our final 2 days of Early Voting on Thursday and Friday where we open up the additional Branch Early Voting locations are still to come, so you never know what may happen.
Compared to other Gubernatorial years than 2018, we do seem to be on track to do better than average for this type of election. Another thing to consider is that we have over 4,000 Suspense voters on the roll right now. These are voters whose mail was returned to us at some point who we suspect have moved. The highest concentration of Suspense voters comes from Precincts near SFA, and I think it’s quite possible we have over 2,000 former students on the voter roll who participated in either the 2018 and/or 2020 General Elections, but have since graduated and moved out of the County. The State usually does not drop these voters from our roll for 3 or 4 years after they have remained on Suspense and have also not participated in any other elections. Only God knows what our true turnout is based on the number of registered voters who are actually still residing in the County, but I believe our actual turnout percentage of voters who are still here is probably higher than the percentage we are showing.
Things are going very well on my end and we have not had any major issues come up. I encourage people to participate in Early Voting as we are able to get you checked in very fast and voters are not having to wait in any lines. We have quite a few first time poll workers helping us and they all seem to be really enjoying it. Of course you will see many familiar faces as well as there are many poll workers still with us who have been involved in elections longer than I have, and they are all doing a great job as usual. We hope many more voters will take advantage of Early Voting as we head towards its conclusion this week.Please see the updated chart of voters attached below.
Visit www.NacVotes.com to view Sample Ballots and more.
Thanks so much,
Todd Stallings – Nacogdoches County Elections Administrator
