Robert Moore

El Paso Times

Monday was the first day of early voting for the Nov. 8 election in El Paso and throughout Texas. Here are some notes from voting so far.

Stickers!

The "I Voted" sticker is a longtime tradition in elections, and this year El Paso County voters are getting a new version that's quite different from the old check-mark or wavy-flag stickers.

Turnout

El Paso County Elections Administrator Lisa Wise said turnout for the first day of early voting was going strong, with about 3,000 in-person votes cast by 11 a.m. (UPDATE: At 3 p.m., Wise said 9,400 people had cast in-person early votes with four hours left to go at most polling places. That number has already surpassed the first-day in-person turnout of any previous early voting period.)

Occasional long lines were reported, including Monday morning at Pavo Real Recreation Center in the Lower Valley, historically one of El Paso's busier early voting sites.

For some historical context, I looked back at the 2008 and 2012 elections, the last two presidential races.

In 2008, 8,658 El Pasoans came out to vote on the first day of early voting. When combined with 2,155 mail ballots received that first day, a total of 10,813 early votes were recorded.

In 2012, the numbers fell to 8,258 in-person voters and 1,222 mail voters, for a total of 9,480.

So what would be a good first-day turnout for El Paso? How about 10,000 in-person voters and 2,000 mail ballots, for a total of 12,000. (UPDATE 2: Wise tells me the county has received about 3,600 mail ballots so far. That's more than the entire 2012 early voting period, and getting close to the 4,633 cast in the entire 2008 early voting period. So as of 3 p.m. El Paso County has had more than 13,000 early votes cast. Using my earlier standard, this is well beyond good for El Paso.)

We'll know the actual numbers Tuesday morning. The elections office will update early voting totals from the previous day each morning.

Early voting continues through Nov. 4. Election Day is Nov. 8. You can see a list of early voting sites here.

Info on registered voters

El Paso County has 428,507 registered voters for this election. Almost 266,000 of them -- 62 percent -- did not vote in the 2012 presidential election, according to a quick analysis of the data I conducted this morning. That would include people who registered to vote since the last presidential election, as well as those who were registered but didn't cast ballots. Remember, only 47 percent of El Paso County's registered voters cast ballots in the 2012 election.

That leaves just over 162,000 registered voters who cast ballots in 2012. The total vote that year was 176,146, meaning more than 14,000 El Pasoans who voted in 2012 are no longer registered here. They died or moved away.

Exit pollsters

Students from Coronado High school, led by members of the WE(Fillintheblank) student organization, were conducting exit polls at most early voting sites on Monday. They'll be back out on Saturday, then will be at about a third of the Election Day polling sites.

The WE(Fillintheblank) organization has done a number of civic engagement projects over the years, including debates and student forums. This is their second exit poll, after doing one during the 2012 primaries.

The students are asking voters about how they voted in the presidential election, and whether they think the country and our community are on the right track.They will provide some fascinating data after the election.

Disclosure: I have provided advice to the We (Fillintheblank) students over the years, including for their current exit poll project.

Robert Moore is editor of the El Paso Times. He may be reached at 546-6149; bmoore@elpasotimes.com; @BobMooreNews on Twitter.