Election trends keep changing. One such trend has been the number of people deciding to early vote rather that fight election day crowds. In fact, the trend has grown so much that in an election with high voter turn-out, such as the last presidential election, lines at early voting locations (there is one in Garland) can be much longer than those on election day (when there are many more locations).

For the first six days of early voting, 170 to 209 voted each day. Fewer voted Sunday. The highest numbers were on the last two days, with 459 voted on the last day.

 
Early voting for Saturday's mayoral election closed yesterday. I predicted a low turnout election and I guess it's impossible to be wrong if only 4-5% of the eligible voters actually vote, but what I meant was that I expected fewer voters than the last mayoral election. By that measure, it looks like I might be wrong. The number of early voters in the 2007 mayoral race were just six more than this year (1,992 vs 1,984).
 
Just like this year, there were three mayoral candidates in 2007. However, there were two contested council races that time also. Presumably the council races would have brought extra voters to the polls. Also, the 2007 race had a special interest factor that isn't present this year: all three candidates were "new." There was no incumbent seeking re-election and none of the candidates had held public office. That's not the case this time.
 
The interest in early voting has been rising steadily for several years. In the 2000 mayoral election, 17% voted early. By 2007, that number was up to 30%. Last year, there was only one contested council race so most of the city didn't participate. In that race though, 43% voted early.
 
Of the early voters, about 16% were from District 1, although we comprise about 12% of the city's population. Of the precincts in District 1, the highest number of early voters were from 2102, the precinct around Firewheel Golf Park. In fact, 2102 voters turned out in greater numbers than any other precinct in Garland.
 
See, it's not even Election Day yet and it's already interesting!
 
UPDATE: Final numbers in the mayoral race indicate that almost 40% of those casting votes chose to do so early. There is definitely a strong trend toward early voting, which will change some of the dynamics in future races. Most campaign expectations are focused on election day. True, much effort is now directed to early voting but the day may soon come that almost all effort has to be directed to the early voter, which means earlier timelines and a different distribution of resources for the candidates.
 

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Comment from: Todd Gonitzke [Visitor]

What this town needs is a Monorail!

05/11/09 @ 07:39

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