AUSTIN (KXAN) — Did you vote early and want to see if your ballot has been counted yet? The Texas Secretary of State’s website keeps track of the totals leading up to and through Election Day.
People can go to the Secretary of State’s website and select “2024 NOVEMBER 5TH GENERAL ELECTION” from the dropdown, then search “Official Early Voting Turnout by Date” to download a spreadsheet and look for their names. The information from this website comes from individual counties.
Williamson County told KXAN there are instances where incomplete rosters may be uploaded for a particular day but it has systems in place to make sure the full list is added. For example, if an election worker shuts down a poll book used to check in voters before it transmits its information to the election office, the list for that day won’t be complete but will be updated the next day when polls reopen. The county said it checks daily to make sure complete rosters are added and works to reupload them if needed.
Those who are voting by mail can individually look up the status of their application or ballot on the Secretary of State’s website, as well.
Some counties also provide voter information on their websites. For example, Travis County has a “Reports” tab that lets people download a roster of votes.
More than 18.6 million Texans are registered to vote — including 1.8 million in the 15 counties that make up KXAN’s viewing area, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
Early voting started Oct. 21 and goes through Nov. 1. Election day is Nov. 5.
Questions or concerns about voting should be sent to your county’s elections administrator, which can be found here on the Secretary of State’s website.
Counting the ballots
The ballots themselves won’t be tabulated and included in results until after polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day. Soon after polls close, counties begin counting and sharing those early voting totals and then the results from election day, which KXAN will track in a results page on our website.
On election night, counties will report their unofficial election results, but there is more to the process, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The votes must be canvassed, which is a process that “aggregates and confirms ballots cast in the election are accurately counted and included in the final election results.” In Texas, the deadline to review provisional ballots is Nov. 15, and local canvassing must be complete by Nov. 19.
Once canvassed, results are certified, in which officials attest that the results “are a true and accurate accounting of all votes.”
Texas also does an audit of the electronic voting system, called a partial manual count, in which some ballots are hand-counted to ensure accuracy. It must start within 72 hours of polls closing and be completed no later than 21 days after election day.
While final results for the presidential race may not be available election night, some changes since last time could mean that race is called sooner than in 2020, when it took almost five days for major news outlets to issue projections. That includes fewer mail-in ballots expected and new policies in some states to start processing ballots before election day, according to the Hill.
Christopher Adams and Barrett Tryon contributed to this report.