After two weeks of early voting leading up to Election Day, figures from the Gregg County Elections Office show that the first and last days were some of its busiest.
Elections Administrator Jennifer Briggs said the first week of early voting tends to be busier than the second, which typically slows down before picking back up on the final days.
The county has 73,956 registered voters and by Nov. 4, 21,890 (29.6%) cast an early ballot. October 24, the first day of early voting, drew the largest crowd with 2,735 voters hitting the polls. The second busiest day was Oct. 25, with 2,597 voters and was followed up by the Nov. 4, the last day of early voting, which saw 2,409 voters cast an early ballot.
Early voting numbers were down compared with figures from 2018. At that time the county had 69,321 registered voters of which 23,534 (33.9%) showed up to the polls. In 2020, a presidential election year, there were 73,042 registered voters, of which 37,977 (52%) participated in early voting.
A power outage Friday at the Judson Community Center was the only issue the elections office ran into during the two-week early voting period, Briggs said. Heavy storms last week were most likely to blame for the outage, she speculated. Lack of power didn’t slow down voters though, as the polling machines have backup battery modes for such contingencies, she explained.
After being informed of the outage, Pct. 1 Commissioner Ronnie McKinney went to assist with a backup generator in tow which ended up not being needed after the power shortly returned, Briggs said. The outage did not cause a delay in voting, she added.
“(Residents) were able to vote with no problem,” she said.
There are 18 polling locations that residents can vote at with 13 in Longview, one in White Oak, Gladewater, and Liberty city and two in Kilgore. All of the locations will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. but Briggs recommended not waiting until the last minute to show up.
“Usually it’s best between 10 and 11 (a.m.) sometimes even after lunch time is a little bit slower. It’s Election Day, so it’s possible they’re going to be waiting in line at any time,” she said.
Some locations, like the Greggton Community Center, tend to get busier than others so she recommended trying alternate spots or calling the elections office to ask about turnout and which places aren’t as busy.
The office has sent out 1,700 mail-in ballots and of those, 250 have not yet been returned. Twenty-five ballots that have been returned have pending ID corrections related to the 2021 state election law.
Senate Bill 1, approved this past year by the Legislature, requires voters to put an identification number on their mail-in ballot application and on the mail-in ballot itself. The identifying number can either be a driver’s license, state ID or Social Security number.
If the number provided on the application does not match what is in the elections office voter registration system, the application or mail-in ballot is rejected.
Voters can either correct the issue in person or use the online ballot tracker at tinyurl.com/sosballottracker to fix their ID issues. Voters are also welcome to call the elections office for help on how to correct their ID number online, Briggs added.
“It can get a little picky on how you enter the data, so (voters) can feel free to give us a call and we’ll help them out and make sure they get that corrected,” she said.
For more information visit greggcountyvotes.com/ .