Early voting in Collin County | Dallas News Live

As I mentioned, first day of early voting. You see I got my sticker right there. Early voting in Texas. You can vote early for the next two weeks. Election day is November 3rd. Joining us live, Collin County Election Administrator Caleb Brough. Caleb, we saw long lines at some of the traditional high volume spots there in Collin County and Plano and other places. How are things going so far today? Oh man, it has been busy. I think I checked our numbers before I hopped on this interview with you, Stephen, and we had already voted over 16,000 voters in the first few hours of early voting this morning. So things are hopping and moving out there. 16,000 voters plus by one o'clock. I know every year is different. Every cycle is different. But compared to two years ago, is that normal? Is that on par or higher? Oh, I think for a first day turnout, we're higher. I haven't had time to crunch the numbers. You kind of wait for the end of the day for dust to settle. But definitely will be something we look at the at the end of the day today. But definitely just off the cuff. It is it is higher than typical. Now, Collin County is doing things a little different. You guys are on paper ballots. Has that slowed down anything? I will be transparent. We got a couple of calls from some people saying printers were down. What's been the update with that process? Yeah. So to start the morning, we had about 10 locations that were experiencing some some printer outages so it didn't delay voting at a few polling locations there were 10 locations i think that we had report but everything's up and running operational within an hour and a half we had everything back up and running so uh yeah a little little shaky start this morning but we're we're back up and ready to go how are the lines looking now at this hour caleb what's the wait time looking like i know you know people like me i literally was in line at 705 i'm the type that get it out the way. I want to be first in line. But some people are probably going during their lunch. And then, of course, I know you guys are expecting a big rush when people get off of work on this first day. Absolutely. This morning, I think you kind of waiting in line kind of set the tone for us. We had a higher than usual wait the first morning of early voting. And then, yeah, you nailed it. I think we see some peaks, obviously, that lunchtime rush. And then as people are getting off work, it kind of follows a normal trend. Just with the amount of interest that we've seen across the board for all these contests that are on the ballot, I think we may see that trend carried throughout the week. Normally, you hit midweek days and it tapers off a bit or slows down a bit. But just the pace that we're seeing this morning, it may hold true all week. Is it really more in your mind? Do you think people are just ready to go vote so they can get it over with? I've been talking to a lot of people over the weekend. I was at a couple events and they were like, I'm just ready to vote Monday so that I can tune these commercials and things out. I mean, I guess so. It's hard to tell what people are going to do and what they decide and where they go vote and how they turn out. But yeah, I think there's just so much anticipation about getting this done. And Stephen, if I could encourage voters, do not wait till the last day. Do not wait till election day. because you know if we're experiencing some some lines now I can only imagine that ramping up you know as we wait you know to vote on election day so if if you can make a plan and vote early if at all possible. Caleb I'm gonna give you a little opportunity to brag on your county I talk about Collin County a lot because you guys have a high voter participation when it comes to other counties statewide how active are Collin County voters especially for an election where this is a big one, we could see huge turnout. How often do you guys and your voters vote early compared to some other counties? Yeah, we have great voter participation here. And Stephen, when I look back at the 2022 turnout, which is a like election, we voted at a clip of 53% turnout back in 22. And as we are kind of ramping up and preparing for this election, I would not be surprised if we see upwards to 60% and 70% turnout just with voters wanting to have their voices heard. So, yeah, we have a great voting population here. Very fortunate for that. Get a lot of feedback on some things, the way we do things sometimes, and we welcome that as well. So we're just encouraged that voters are showing up. We put in all this work, months leading up to this process. and for our voters to show up ready to cast their ballot. It makes us excited. You're saying 60 possible, 70% turnout, and I know a lot of that is early voting. Is it more so just you have people who live in that county and like to vote, or is it also a combination of more people moving to the county and also being active voters? I think it's a little bit of both. And when you look at where we were back in 2022, we do have almost 100,000 more registered voters now than we did back in our last gubernatorial election. So not only are new people moving in, but I think that the new folks that are moving into Collin County are equally motivated as the people who have lived here for years. Collin County Election Administrator, Caleb Rowe, thank you for your time. Always a pleasure, Stephen.