Texas, we’ve been here before. In fact, we often issue this lament after local elections.
Why won’t more Texans show up at the polls?
Preliminary counts show that only 17.5% of about 17 million registered voters in this state cast a ballot in the March primaries. In a state where one-party rule has been the norm for decades, that means a small percentage of the state’s total population — in this case 1.9 million GOP primary voters — gets to set the agenda for 29 million Texans.
And that’s their right. They showed up. But it’s disheartening that more Texans don’t feel compelled to have a say in how they’re governed.
The turnout was consistently low across our region and other metropolitan areas. In Dallas County, 15.3% of registered voters showed up, with Tarrant and Collin counties faring only slightly better. In Travis County, turnout was 18.1% and in Bexar County, 15.2%. In Harris County, the largest in Texas, only about 13% of voters cast ballots.
For all of Texas’ bravado on the national stage, we’re underperformers when it comes to getting our people to the polls. In the 2018 midterm primaries, the national turnout was a fifth of all eligible voters, according to an analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. While states such as Florida, California and Oklahoma managed to get turnouts ranging from 25% to 33% in those primaries, our turnout was less than 15% of eligible voters.
Even the extremely competitive 2016 presidential election wasn’t enough of a draw for half of all eligible Texas voters. Our turnout ranked 47th in the country, ahead of only Tennessee, West Virginia and Hawaii.
We know that people are busy, whirring through hectic work shifts, the school pickup line and house chores. But when only a few of us show up to vote, when the broad middle of the electorate decides to ride the bench, we all have to live with the consequences for years.
Texans who showed up to vote this year by and large rewarded candidates whose campaigns were often fueled by partisan talking points rather than substance.
Consider the GOP race for Texas House District 64 in Denton County. Longtime incumbent Lynn Stucky, an effective conservative voice who respects the House’s tradition of bipartisanship, came within 102 votes of losing his seat to Andy Hopper, a political neophyte who pitched the unrealistic idea that the Rio Grande should be trenched and deepened to presumably block more migrants from entering while U.S. troops should be stationed on the Mexican side of the border — something that would spark an international incident.
The preliminary 2022 primary turnout figures don’t account for the thousands of mail-in ballots across the state that have been flagged for violating state rules, including a new rule that requires voters to include an ID number that matches the one in their voter registration. Many seniors encountered problems.
Republican leaders attributed the issues to the newness of the law, voicing optimism that the problems will lessen with the passage of time. We hope that the takeaway here is that state officials need to do more to clear up confusion. Texas can’t afford to lose more voters to apathy or frustration.
Dallas Morning News
