Big Texas Turnout In First Week Of Early Voting

"It's hard work working hard" and poll workers across Collin County, and all of Texas, have been working hard to accommodate the crush of early voters. So far, early voting totals are far out pacing the daily early turnout totals of the 2004 presidential election.

More than 1.1 million Texans cast ballots in the 15 most populous counties through Thursday, compared with 655,265 in the top 15 counties four years ago, according to figures given on the Texas Secretary of State's website.

Word has reached some early polling locations that after church services on Sunday many parishioners are planning to go directly to early voting locations as part of a voter mobilization project called "Super Sunday."

Typically, turnout during the second week of early voting is much heavier than in the first week of voting. The table below uses 2004 daily early voting numbers, from the Texas SOS website, and 2008 actual week one turnout numbers to project voting turnout numbers that Collin County election workers might expect for the second week of early voting.

If the 2004 early voting pattern holds for 2008, then Collin Collin might see a 57% turnout, of the 425,000+ registered voters, for early voting. The 57% early turnout number is a "WAG" but this is the number required to make the 2004 voting pattern projection produce numbers close to the actual 2008 early voting numbers so far reported. I don't know - call me crazy...

		2004 Nov. Election Daily Early Voting Turnout		2008 Nov. Election Daily Early Voting Projection based on 57% Early Turnout Using 2004 Daily Voting Patterns
Early Vote Day	Daily Hours of Voting	Actual Daily Vote Totals	Actual Daily % of Total Early Vote	Actual Daily Early Vote Total Turnout	Projection of Daily Early Vote Total Turnout
Mon	9	9,137	6.09%	13,900	14,756
Tue	9	9,491	6.33%	15,356	15,328
Wed	9	9,257	6.17%	15,563	14,950
Thu	9	9,090	6.06%	14,734	14,680
Fri	9	10,293	6.86%		16,623
Sat	12	15,102	10.07%		24,390
Sun	5	5,524	3.68%		8,921
Mon	12	13,739	9.16%		24,751
Tue	12	15,326	10.22%		25,228
Wed	12	15,621	10.41%		26,819
Thu	12	16,606	11.07%		27,289
Fri	12	20,815	13.88%		33,616
Total		150,001	100%	59,553	242,250