Early voter turnout in Williamson County trails 2018 by 'leaps and bounds'

Turnout for early voting is trending low for Williamson County, officials say.

The turnout was 24.3%, or 101,489 voters out of 418,338 registered voters, as of Monday, which was the eighth day to cast a ballot early. Over the same time period in 2018, during the last midtermelections, the early voting turnout was 34.5%, said Chris Davis, the county's election administrator.

The turnout in 2018 by the eighth day of early voting was "leaps and bounds better than what we’re currently seeing for this election," Davis said.

A total of 62.25% of registered Williamson County voters cast a ballot in the 2018 midterm election, including early voting, according to the county's website.

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Davis said he expects the numbers to jump, especially during the last two daysof early voting on Thursday and Friday. By early Wednesday afternoon, the early voting turnout in the county had increased to 26.6%.

In Williamson County, the ballot includes races for county judge, two county commissioners, four justices of the peace and two county courts-at-law seats. There are also races for the Round Rock and Leander school boards.

Low early voting turnout is not unusual for Texas, said Joshua Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas.

"After record-setting turnout in 2018 and 2020, 2022 is looking more like a traditional Texas election, which means low turnout," Blank said.

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Statewide, 21.5% of registered voters had cast ballots as of Tuesday, according to the Secretary of State Office's website. In 2018 during the same period, 30.1% of the state's voters had cast an early ballot, it said.

"Compared to 2018 and 2020, the election environment is much more favorable to Republicans due the absence of Donald Trump, who wasreplaced by a Democrat in the White House during a time of economic anxiety," Blank said. "So it's not surprising to see more normal levels of engagement, which likely means lower levels of engagement from among potential Democratic voters."

Blank said that due to demographic differences between the two parties, Republican voters tend to vote more reliably from one election to the next.

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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Early voter turnout in Williamson County lags behind 2018 election