Harris County Tops 1 Million Early Votes, KPRC Reports, in a Midterm Turnout With No County Precedent

HOUSTON - Harris County has surpassed 1 million early votes, KPRC 2 reported Friday night, as the county closed a two-week early-voting period that had already broken every midterm mark in its records. The milestone matters beyond the round number: a county that banks a million ballots before Election Day will see many of its races take shape early on election night, when the early-vote tally is the first count released.

The climb to the million was the week's running story. More than 862,000 Harris County voters had cast ballots before polls opened on Thursday, and County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth had predicted the county would reach 1 million by the time early voting ended on Friday. The station's own files tracked the approach through the independent counters - 948,979 county-inclusive ballots through Thursday on the TexPolls count - and this desk held the milestone itself until a county-side report confirmed it rather than printing a prediction as a result.

Two cautions belong with the number. The independent trackers had not reconciled to a million in their last published counts as of Friday evening, and all early-vote figures remain unofficial until canvass; and turnout is not a result - Texas registers no voters by party, and a million early ballots say who showed up, not how they voted. What the figure does establish is scale: Harris County, the state's most populous county and the engine of its largest metro, has voted early at a level no midterm here has reached.

Early voting ended Friday at 7 p.m. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, when Harris County voters who have not yet voted cast the final ballots in the Senate race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico, the county judge's race, and the rest of the ballot - with a thunderstorm forecast, on the station's current weather file, that makes the million banked ballots loom larger still.