Early Voting Numbers in El Paso Are Way Up

If you drove by a voting location on Tuesday, you probably saw a big line. This is for a couple of reasons.

1. With social distancing guidelines, a line of 5 people will extend 30 feet.
2. There was a record number of votes cast on the first day of early voting.

Don't let those lines deter you from taking advantage of early voting though. They have died down a bit, and you can use ANY voting location. It's true. You can CLICK HERE for a complete list of the voting stations and their hours here in El Paso.

The numbers for that first day are a bit staggering. There were 19,000 votes cast at voting locations on opening day of early voting. There was another 15,000 votes sent in by mail, bringing the opening day totals to 34,000 votes. How does this compare to previous elections. Well, the mid-term elections of 2018 had just over 17,000 in-person votes on the first day. Add that with another 6,000 votes sent in by mail, and you have a total of 23,000 votes on the first day.

What about the last presidential election? That would give us a better comparison to this election. There were 15,000 in-person votes, and just over 4,000 mail-in votes. This brings the total on the first day to just over 19,000. Significantly lower than where we are at here in 2020. Again, don't let the longs lines deter you from taking advantage of the early voting. There are voting locations all throughout the city and I've seen more than a few have the lines die down throughout the day.