Early Voting Wraps Up In El Paso County

The 2012 Democratic ballot has drawn a lot of interest in El Paso County.

Numbers released early Saturday morning by El Paso County show a huge increase in voter turnout for early balloting.

More than 27,000 people cast a ballot during the two-week early-voting session. That’s up roughly 9,000 votes from the last primary election in 2010.

Javier Chacon, the county elections administrator, attributed that uptick to a number of hotly contested races, including two open county commissioner seats, multiple state representative seats and the 16th congressional district seat currently held by Rep. Silvestre Reyes.

While the numbers have been large so far in Tuesday’s Texas primary, which was pushed back due to redistricting issues earlier this year, the numbers may dwindle due to a holiday hangover. According to Chacon, this is the first time in recent memory where an election has taken place directly after a holiday. Tuesday’s election takes place the day after Memorial Day, and so far no one knows how that may affect the race.

“We’re still hoping they increase, but this is one of the first times when we have an election after a big holiday,” said Chacon. “Hopefully everyone has voted, but in case they haven’t we hope they take advantage of Election Day.”

Both Reyes, the incumbent congressman, and his main competiro, Beto O’Rourke, have said early voting will likely decide the race. So far, both candidates say they’re excited about the high volume of votes.

While Democratic voting is up, however, Republican voting has hit rock bottom.

A little more than 5,000 Republicans voted in the primary election this year. That’s down from nearly 7,000 in 2010. The total number of Republican primary voters is only a few hundred votes more than the number of Democrats that voted on the final day of early voting in El Paso County.