Ballots cast in Travis County jumps by 125,000 in 2020 election compared to 2016

The Daily Texan, Skye Seipp and Meha Madhira:

In 2016, 477,588 ballots were cast, while 602,398 were cast this year. Among UT’s polling locations, 507 votes were cast at the Flawn Academic Center on Tuesday, while 382 votes were cast at Gregory Gym, according to Varun Rajaram, work elections fellow for the Campus Vote project.

Joshua Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project, said the country is in a historical time, which is a factor in the higher voter turnout.

“We are still in the middle of a global pandemic that the country has not contained or done a very good job containing in the last year,” Blank said. “Due to that pandemic, there has been a pretty significant negative impact on the economy, and these are the sort of big, predictable factors that should drive people to the polls.”

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