Early voting across Texas ended Friday with more than 8.7 million Texans using the two-week period to vote, according to unofficial totals from the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

Harris County had the highest number of early voters statewide, with 1,176,426 in-person early voters.

About 89,000 additional voters took advantage of early voting in 2020 in Harris County.

But voters had an extra week to cast their ballots at the start of that year.

Looking at the percentages, 43.68 percent of registered voters cast ballots during this year’s early voting period. This figure is down from 51.01% during 2020’s three-week early voting period, but up from 2016’s two-week early voting.

This trend is true in Fort Bend and Harris counties.

Fort Bend recorded an early voting participation rate of 53.58 percent, down from 62.43 percent in 2020 but up from 49.91 percent in 2016. The county experienced this year the fourth highest voter turnout among Texas’ 10 most populous counties.

Montgomery County saw 52.85 percent of its registered voters show up in person to vote early. Despite being a lower percentage than in 2016, the 239,849 voters represented a significant increase from 2020’s early voting turnout, which was 213,872.

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.

Thanks to mail-in ballots, 9,057,873 Texans voted early.

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.