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Texas: The Issue Is - 2024 Election Special
The Texas: The Issue Is 2024 Election Special breaks down the key issues and races across Texas. Senator Ted Cruz and his challenger, Congressman Colin Allred sit down to talk about their race. Plus, a look at the presidential election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and the issues that could drive Texas voters to the polls.
Early voting in Texas wrapped up Friday with nearly 9 million voters opting to use the two-week period to cast a ballot.
Texas has seen a surge in voters the past few years and more are using early voting to cast their votes.
Tarrant County saw more in-person early voters than Dallas County in 2024, according to unofficial totals from the Texas Secretary of State's Office.
635,102 votes were cast in Tarrant County, compared to 633,139 in Dallas County.
Dallas County reported 26,194 mail votes returned, compared to Tarrant County's 23,454.
The total early voting numbers in Dallas and Tarrant counties were down from 2020, when Texans got an extra week to vote early.
Despite the shorter timeframe, Denton County (368,041 early votes) and Collin County (423,974 early votes) both saw more votes cast early than in 2020.
56.62 percent of registered voters in Collin County chose to cast a ballot early in-person. The turnout rate was the highest of Texas' 10 largest counties.
Denton County, 55.63%, was second among the state's 10 most populous counties.
Historical early voting
The Texas Secretary of State's Office says 18.6 million Texans are registered to vote in the 2024 election. The 8,708,659 who voted early in-person this year represent 46.76 percent of the registered voters in the state.
That's just shy of the 8,764,385 who voted early in 2020, when there was an extra week of early voting.
With mail-in ballots, 9,057,873 Texans voted early.
Texas' population of registered voters exploded ahead of the 2020 general election. 52 percent of the nearly 17 million registered voters voted early that November.
Early voting in 2020 doubled that of 2016 when 4.1 million Texans voted early. The Secretary of State's Office lists 9.7 million registered voters in 2016.
Data shows the number of voters using early voting has steadily climbed since 1996 when 12.71 percent of registered voters chose to vote early.
Since then, 18.62 percent of voters in 2000 used early voting, the number jumped to 28.13 percent in 2004 and 39.55 percent in 2008.
There was a slight dip in 2012 when only 36.84 percent of voters used early voting, but that number rose to 42.89 percent in 2016.