Texas is quickly nearing its total vote count in 2016.
Last week, headlines poured in across the state of Texas as city after city smashed early voting records: Harris, Dallas, El Paso, and Travis counties all reported record-breaking numbers on the first day of voting. With 4 million votes so far cast in Texas, as of Monday, the state leads the country in the highest voting numbers this election season.
Early voting began in Texas on October 13, in less than a week, over 4,064,685 votes – either in-person or through absentee ballots – had been casted. In 2016, the total number of votes submitted in the Lonestar State totaled to nearly nine million. In less than a week, the votes in Texas have tallied up to nearly half of that number at about 45 percent.
Granted, early voting has not yet been available in some states, including New York, which has the fourth largest population in the country.
According to the U.S. Elections Project, California follows Texas with around 3 million votes cast, as of Sunday. The only state with a larger population than Texas began early voting on October 5 and have so far accounted to around 21 percent of their 2016 voting numbers.
Florida, opened for early voting on October 19, and has already accounted for 2.5 votes – nearly 26% of the total votes cast in 2016. On a percentage basis, the state of Vermont has reached around 43 percent of its turnout four years ago since opening for early voting on September 21.
Early voting continues in Texas until October 30.