Early voting entrance at Randall County Annex | Photo by Noah Dawson
Early voting in the upcoming May 6th election ended yesterday evening. While early vote turnout started off slow, the final numbers from Potter and Randall show a decent increase in turnout compared to the 2021 local election.
Turnout was highest in Randall County, where 11,353 in-person early vote ballots were cast, with more than a quarter of those ballots cast on Tuesday. The most popular location for voters was the Randall County Annex, which reported 8,172 voters. The next most popular location was the Randall County Justice Center in Canyon, which reported a total of 1,269. In addition to in-person votes, 750 ballots were received by mail in Randall. Adding these totals, 12,103 votes have been received in Randall.
Potter County reported a total of 4,841 in-person votes cast. Similar to Randall County, over a quarter of those votes were cast on Tuesday. Turnout was more spread out across polling places in Potter than in Randall, with the most popular location, Casey Carpet One, having reported 1,428 votes, while the Northwest Library reported 1,418 votes. The Santa Fe building was a close third, with 1,324 ballots cast. 208 mail-in ballots were received in Potter, making a total of 5,049 votes reported.
Combining the numbers for both counties, a total of 17,152 votes are in, with 16,194 of those votes having been cast in person. At the end of early voting in 2021, 13,480 in-person votes had been cast, with a total of 15,756 having been cast when counting mailed ballots. This increase is especially notable, given the fact that 2021’s early vote turnout was itself a 44% increase from 2019’s numbers.
The increase in turnout may be due in part to the heated open races for city office in Amarillo, which includes the heated mayoral race. There are also open seats up for grabs on the boards for Amarillo College, Amarillo ISD, Bushland ISD, and Highland Park ISD.
Election day is Saturday, May 6th. Polls will be open from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. Live results will be on AmarilloPioneer.com that evening.