Texans turned out to vote!

Texans turned out to vote!

2020 has been a long and challenging year, which makes celebrating our victories all the sweeter. Since 2015, Texas Educators Vote has been working with its partners to create a culture of voting in Texas public schools. It is time to celebrate because Texans, in particular young voters, showed up to vote in record numbers during the November 2020 election.

Let’s look at the numbers:

  1. The number of Texans registered to vote grew 12 percent between 2016 and 2020, with an increase of 1,854,432 registered voters. (Total registered: 16,955,519)
  2. Voter turnout in Texas soared with 2,262,573 voters casting a ballot. That is 25% more voters who turned out to vote in 2020 than did so in 2016. (Total voters: 11,231,799)
  3. Voter turnout (number of people who voted divided by the number of registered voters) was the highest it has been since 1992, coming in at 66.24%. In 2016, voter turnout measured 59.39%, so we increased voter turnout 6.85%. Wow!
  4. Texas’ young voters (aged 18-29) led the nation in early voting. Over 1.2 million young Texans cast early ballots compared to 19 million over the entire 2016 election. According to Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), the top three issues driving young voters to the polls were: coronavirus, racism, and climate change. They are engaged and voting!
  5. All these numbers suggest we are making headway, strengthening democracy, and creating a culture of voting. Way to go!

A few questions worth pondering:

  1. Looking at historical voter turnout data in Texas, we see that this level of voter turnout was the norm throughout the 1970s and 1980s when voter turnout among registered voters ranged from 65%-68%, with the all-time high of 72% in 1992. However, from 1996-2016 voter turnout dropped into the 52-59% range until this election. What happened then to discourage Texans from exercising their right to vote?
  2. While Texas is making great strides to increase voter engagement and participation, except for our stellar early voter turnout this year, Texas voter turnout is still slightly lower than the 2020 national average of 66.4% and falls 43rd-44th in measures of voter turnout by state. The states with lower voter turnout than Texas were New Mexico, Mississippi, Tennessee, Hawaii, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. We have room for more progress!

Over the coming months I’ll do some research on those questions and work with our TEV partners to be ready to continue making progress for the next round of elections.

Meanwhile, thank you for voting and for working to create a culture of voting in Texas public schools!

With thanks,

Laura Yeager
Texas Educators Vote