Hays County has record turnout for early voting

There are almost 153,000 registered voters in Hays County. When polling sites opened Friday morning, just over 91,000 had voted. 

HAYS COUNTY, Texas - It wasn’t that long ago when one of the toughest decisions in Kyle wasn’t at a ballot box. The hard choice was what to buy at the Texas Pie Company.

On Friday the vast selection available, to slice up and take home, still posed a dilemma for Ariel Norman and Kacey Duval.

“I mean at least we got to choose two, so you don’t have to choose just one. You can have as many pies as you want, but there was no write-in, if I could write-in and tell them what custom pie I wanted, I probably would have gone a whole different way,” said Norman and Duval.

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There are almost 153,000 registered voters in Hays County. When polling sites opened Friday morning, just over 91,000 had voted. The early vote count was well over the total amount for the 2016 election by about 20,000 votes.

Among those showing up for the last day of the extended early voting period was Frank Ramirez. “Busy all day with work and so I finally had a day off and so I said you know I got to get this done today. So I mean I had to come out here make sure I got my voice heard and I encourage the crowd to do the same,” he said.

There are several hot local issues across Hays County bringing voters out. Kyle has two propositions dealing with the police department. One is a bond issue to build a new justice center. The other would create a citizens oversight committee.

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Propositions to expand and approve parks are also on the ballot for voters in Kyle as well as across Hays County.

However, like what’s on the menu at Julie Albertson’s pie shop; all the names on the ballot motivated her to vote early.

“Well we know a lot of the people, the candidates—they come in and see us, every day. So it was important to me to pay back a little bit to them, as homage to them, for all the stuff they’ve done for the city, and everything they’ve done for our county, and our state, so it was like that,” said Albertson.

Hays County can start counting early voting ballots before Election Day. State law allows that only for counties with a population of more than 100,000. Hays County County Elections Administrator told FOX 7 that they can convene before Election Day but did not say if that would happen this weekend or on Monday.

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