Early voting ends in Texas; Dallas County sees more than 620,000 voters in two weeks
DALLAS — Nicole McFarland has been voting since the administration of former President Bill Clinton. Friday was her first time as an early voter.
"Having surgery Monday, so I have to early vote or I won't be able to do it at all," McFarland said.
She was one of more than 23,000 voters at the Frentz Park Branch Library who cast their ballots before the polls closed at 9 p.m. Friday.
"Everybody knows we had a rough start," said Heider Garcia, the Dallas County Administrator. "We had some issues to deal with. But then the turnout has been also keeping us busy because people have shown up to vote."
Garcia said the department had to overcome an E-Pollbook software issue on the first day of early voting that caused screens to go black, display error messages, and print the wrong ballot for some voters.
More than 620,000 votes had been cast by Friday, three hours before the polls closed. Garcia said the ballots came in two weeks with a seven-precinct expansion. In 2020, the November presidential election stretched for three weeks, yielding about 720,000 votes.
"So in two weeks, we're doing almost what we did four years ago, in three weeks. And that's a testament, I think, to how people have been out there voting," Garcia said.
Passion boiled over at some precincts, but Garcia said nothing required arrest or medical attention. He said opposing sides facing off had to be de-escalated.
Voter Kyle Knowles said the voting process was as secure as in 2020.
"It was pretty smooth," Knowles said. "Like the last one I did."
Garcia said Friday night, staff will break down the polling centers and take equipment to a secure area monitored by a live-stream camera until they remove the memory drives from each machine for vote counting on Tuesday.
Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.