SAN ANTONIO — The final day of early voting has revealed lower-than-anticipated turnout compared to the 2018 election cycle in Bexar County. But elections department officials are hopeful for a sizeable crowd come Election Day on Nov. 8.
Alejandro Quijano, who admits he’s not the most politically active, joined thousands of other Bexar County residents Friday morning to cast his ballot in the midterm elections. Alexis Anderson and her colleague also joined the line in front of the Cody Library, one of 50 early voting sites in the San Antonio area.
“The line was not this long when I got here,” Quijano said. “Pretty straight forward. I just got in line, waited a couple minutes.”
“I want what I believe in represented in our leaders of our nation and I think that now is an important time to do so,” Anderson said.
The Bexar County Elections Department has recorded more than 320,000 in-person early voters as of Friday afternoon. In 2018, nearly 380,000 people cast their votes early in-person.
“The wild card in this is that since 2018 through now, Bexar County has had tremendous growth. One would logically expect that your voter numbers would go up based on that 11.5% increase in registrations that we’ve had,” said Jacquelyn Callanen, Bexar County elections administrator.
Callanen noted the elections department is aware of some people calling to claim the voting machines somehow switched their desired candidates on the ballots.
She urges everyone to be precise when selecting options on the electronic ballot to avoid undesired technical errors due to the machine’s sensitivity. Callanen added there’s a review section in the ballot filing process to ensure everything is correct.
“If that happens, we have a process in place where the elections officials spoil that ballot card and reissue them a new one and so they get to absolutely vote for their candidates of their choice,” she said.
The Bexar County Elections Department expects at least 150,000 voters on Tuesday.