Early voting in Texas ended Friday with nearly 9 million voters chose to take advantage of the two-week period to vote.

Early voting numbers in 2024 fell in Travis County compared to 2020, when voters had an extra week to cast their ballots.

About 460,000 people in Travis County took advantage of the two-week period that ended Friday to vote. This number is down from the 486,000 who voted in early 2020.

Nonetheless, Travis County saw an increase in voter turnout percentage in 2024 (49.72%) compared to 2016 (49.32%), the last time early voting was limited to two weeks during ‘a presidential election year.

Williamson and Hays County both went in the opposite direction, with more voters in 2024 compared to 2020.

Both counties added a significant number of registered voters between 2020 and 2024. From a percentage standpoint, early voting was still down from 2020.

Historic early voting in Texas

The Texas Secretary of State’s office says 18.6 million Texans are registered to vote for the 2024 election. The 8,708,659 people who voted early in person this year represent 46.76% of registered voters in the state.

That’s slightly fewer than the 8,764,385 who voted at the start of 2020, when there was an extra week of early voting.

Texas’ registered voter population exploded ahead of the 2020 general election. 52 percent of the nearly 17 million registered voters cast ballots early in November.

Early voting in 2020 doubled from 2016, when 4.1 million Texans voted early. The Secretary of State’s office lists 9.7 million registered voters in 2016.

Data shows that the number of voters using early voting has increased steadily since 1996, when 12.71 percent of registered voters chose to vote early.

Since then, 18.62 percent of voters in 2000 voted early, this figure rose to 28.13 percent in 2004 and 39.55 percent in 2008.

There was a slight decline in 2012, when only 36.84% of voters voted early, but this increased to 42.89% in 2016.