TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas – The county where Austin, Texas, is located has set a new voter registration record.
About 97% of eligible voters in Travis County are now registered to vote, according to Voter Registrar Bruce Elfant.
In a Facebook post, Elfant said Monday that the milestone has been achieved in large part by the county’s dedicated and hard-working civic engagement army of several thousand volunteer deputy registrars.
The announcement came one day before Texas began its early voting for the general election on Tuesday.
Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir wrote on Twitter that a total of 35,873 people voted early in person Tuesday.
35,873 people voted early in person today. You can view early numbers by location on the Clerk’s website under daily vote totals. https://t.co/8n2iNRVE5Y
— Travis County Clerk (@TravisCoClerk) October 14, 2020
Statewide, a record 16.9 million Texans are registered to vote for the Nov. 3 election, USA Today reported Tuesday, citing data from the state’s secretary of state’s office. That’s up by about 1.8 million registered voters since the 2016 presidential election.
This increase in Texas voters comes as Gov. Greg Abbot limits each of the state’s counties to just one absentee ballot drop-off location. A federal appeals court upheld the decision Monday, after it was challenged and called a voter suppression tactic by some.
