Voters flocked to early voting locations all over Texas as they took advantage, beginning Monday, Oct. 20, of being able to cast their ballots in advance of the Nov. 4 election.
Election year 2008 marks 20 years of early voting for the Lone Star State. It was the mid-1980s brainchild of then-State Sen. Chet Edwards, a Democrat from Waco, out of frustration.
Edwards was angry that he had to swear he wouldn’t be at his usual local balloting place on election day in order to qualify to vote absentee.
“I had to say I was going to be out of town,” Edwards said in 1988. “The truth is, I travel a great deal, and there was always an excellent chance I would be out of town. So in order to be sure I would vote, I had to vote absentee – even though I wasn’t sure I would be out of town. But I didn’t like having to swear to that affidavit.”
So, Edwards got his legislative colleagues, during a rewrite of the state’s election code in 1987, to remove any barriers to absentee voting. And that included provision for early voting. (Edwards was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990, and has been there since.)
That first year of early voting, in 1988, about a fifth of the voters statewide cast their ballots early in the general election, and almost half the voters in some counties. And the percentage has grown in election years since, as political parties and candidates have increasingly urged their supporters to cast their ballots ahead of election day.
By essentially stretching the election day by about two weeks, early voting has altered the pace of campaigns, and particularly their advertising. Candidates know now that a considerable number of votes will be cast well before the actual election day, and so they must have their mailings out sooner, and TV ads on the air earlier and for a longer period of time.
Early voting is conducted at various locations, and registered voters can cast their ballots at any early voting site in their home county. Voters can check with their county election officials to find the most convenient sites to vote ahead of time.
On election day Nov. 4, those who have not already voted must vote at their home precinct. Early voting ends on Friday, Oct. 31.
Early voting is just one of the changes that Texans have seen over the last century. For instance, back in the days of racial segregation, voters beginning in 1902 had to pay a poll tax of $1.75 by the end of January in order to vote the following November. And African-Americans were excluded from the Democrats’ so-called “White Primary” until the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed it in 1944.
Texas, however, hung onto the poll tax. It was ended in federal elections by the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1964. Two years later, the Supreme Court outlawed the poll tax in all Texas elections, ruling it violated the equal rights provision of the 14th Amendment.
Some other election changes over the years include:
1920 – Women given the right to vote by the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1970 – Congress passes the 18-year-old vote for federal elections.
1971 – The 26th Amendment authorizes the 18-year-old vote for all elections.
1971 – U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice rules that college students younger than 21 can vote where they attend college, rather than their home towns.
1972 – Under federal court pressure, voter residency requirements to vote in an election were reduced from one year in the state and six months within a locality to 30 days.
1977 – Texas mail-in voter registration established, with postage paid by the state.
1992 – “Motor Voter” law passed, which allows Texans to register to vote when they obtain or renew their driver’s license.
The barriers to voting have been steadily reduced over the years. Now the questions to be resolved in the next several days are how many people will vote early, and whether the overall turnout will be just large, or huge.
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And So On. . . . There’ve been some e-mails of uncertain origin, but purporting to come from the Barack Obama campaign, that urge Democratic voters to vote for Obama and vote a straight Democratic ticket.
“. . . (Y)ou have to make sure you punch Barack’s name first, then proceed to punch ‘Straight Democratic’ or else the vote for the president won’t count,” the e-mail says.
Not so. Texas Democratic Party spokesman Hector Nieto said voting on an eSlate voting machine, punching the button for Obama and the straight-ticket button will cancel the Obama vote, as it would any other candidates that are punched on a straight-ticket ballot.To vote a straight ticket, whether it’s Democrat, Republican or Libertarian, just punch the button for that party, and no others.
Contact McNeely at dmcneely@austin.rr.com or (512) 458-2963.
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