A small thread on my thoughts on Texas turnout this election.

First off, despite what some senior Texas Senator might think, Texas is a voter suppression state. It is harder to vote in Texas than any other state. https://newsroom.niu.edu/2020/10/13/how-hard-is-it-to-vote-in-your-state/

. @GovAbbott and the @TexasGOP have tried their best to make it even harder to vote this go round with actions such as limiting counties to one drop-off location and unsuccessful legal challenges to close drive-thru voting sites and limit additional days of early voting.

Despite this, some Texas counties are trying to improve voter access. For instance, Harris county learned from their 6 hour wait lines in the primary to expand early-voting locations and hours and better distribute voting machines to high turnout areas.

So right now: more than 8.4 million people have voted early in Texas.

Texas is very close to surpassing its 2016 total votes cast so far. We have two days of early voting and Election day left. This means Texas is seeing a massive turnout, unlike any other recent elections here.

How many are new voters? Definitely some, but the percentage turnout indicates that population increases alone can't explain this (1.8 million more registered votes in 2020 than 2016). Early voting turnout in places like Denton county is far outpacing voter registration growth.

How many are people who would have turned out on Election Day if not for the pandemic? Not sure. Probably some are voting early because of pandemic fears that would have voted on Election Day. We will see what turnout is like on Election Day.

Will this benefit Biden? Not sure but that's the million dollar question everyone is asking. Cook Report moved Texas from ‘leans Republican’ to ‘toss up.’ Some of the turnout is taking place in rapidly growing and increasingly diverse suburbs which is a good sign for Biden.

I don't think we are going to see Texas go for Biden overall this election, but if it does, I made the silly promise to eat a cowboy hat. (Spoiler, it will probably be a cake).

With this massive turnout, there's major issues. In my county, 22,000 ballots were rejected because of a barcode. There's lots of reports of folks not receiving mall in ballots. https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/10/27/scanning-machine-issues-22k-tarrant-county-mail-in-ballots-rejected/

If you live in Texas and you can vote, you should go today. Friday and Election Day might have really long lines. Do your civic duty! /end