By Jonathan Gonzalez
Over 36,000 registered Hays County voters have so far cast their ballots during the first week of early voting, with more expected to hit the polls as the Nov. 8 election looms.
The huge, and historic, turnout represents roughly 30 percent of the total number of registered voters in the county.
Joyce Cowan, Hays County elections administrator, said 122,500 people registered in Hays County for the Nov. 8 election. That’s compared to the 98,000 total registered voters in 2012.
“After today (Oct. 31), we’ve already met and passed the number of voters that we saw for early voting during the 2012 elections,” said Cowan about the turnout for early voting. “I hate to say it, but overall, things have gone well.”
During the first week of early voting, the county had an average of 4,100 people cast ballots across all polling sites. Over 4000 registered voters cast their ballots each day during early voting, with the exceptions being Oct. 28 (3889) and Oct. 30 (1978).
However, early voting in Hays County has not gone off without a few hitches.
During the start of early voting, an issue with post office equipment led some completed mail-in ballots to be returned to their owners.
On Oct. 25, the polling site at the Hays County Precinct 2 offices in Kyle was closed for about two hours due to technical difficulties with Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines used at the facility, Cowan said.
“After the machines went down and we closed the facility, we wanted to be careful. We couldn’t just go in to find out what the problem was because of all the votes already registered in the machine,” said Cowan. “But once the machines rebooted, things were back in order and have been ever since.”
Cowan said the Pct. 2 voting site was outfitted with five working machines, but three additional machines were added in case of breakdown, or malfunction.
Cowan said the county has relied solely on DREs since the 2012 election.
Paper ballots are not handed out for this election, but can be found if need be, Cowan said.
“There’s not room for much else considering all the people showing up to vote, and all the staff on hand helping out with the process,” Cowan said. “We had some people in line all day on some days of the week.”
One of the most pressing issues during early voting was long lines at some voting sites, which stunted the process for some trying to early vote.
Some voters reported waiting as long as two hours at the Pct. 2 site in Kyle, while some waited as long as 45 minutes to an hour at the Pct. 4 offices in Dripping Springs.
Cowan stated that in the future, they’d like to find to a larger facility to accommodate the needs of voters.
“We’re trying to serve our citizens, but you know, sometimes problems arise. With the machines, you know, it’s like cellphones; sometimes the service isn’t there. We, hopefully, can learn from the mistakes and correct them for the next election,” Cowan said.
