More than 9 million Texans cast a ballot during early voting. Millions more were expected to do so on Tuesday. (Photo by Matt Hennie)
More than 9 million people took part in early voting in Texas. Millions more were expected at the polls on Tuesday for their last chance to cast a ballot.
Miles Mansfield and Maria Chacon, third-grade classmates at Zilker Elementary School, couldn’t vote on Tuesday. But they wanted to share their enthusiasm for Election Day.
They gathered supplies, found a shady spot near a sidewalk, and opened a lemonade stand near their school, which served as one of 176 polling places across Travis County.
In the race between lemonade or water, the choice was clear, Mansfield said.
“We’ve just been selling, selling, selling out of lemonade,” he said. “Everybody’s up for lemonade today.”
More than 9 million people took part in early voting in Texas — that’s nearly 49% of the state’s registered voters. Millions more were expected to cast their ballot on Election Day.
Voting in this election was a milestone for Aakanksha Dasagi. The 19-year-old student at the University of Texas at Austin was finally old enough to vote after recently becoming a US citizen.
“I would highly recommend all students and first-time voters go out and vote because the process was smooth and easy,” Dasagi said Monday during a press conference with Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado.
During the press conference, Limon-Mercado celebrated the election workers at polling places around the county and thanked the 480,364 voters who cast a ballot during early voting.
“Your participation is powerful,” she said.
Maria Chacon and Miles Mansfield with their lemonade stand at Zilker Elementary School on Tuesday. (Photo by Matt Hennie)
‘I was built for this’
Limon-Mercado was joined by Austin native LaShawn Nash, who has served as an elections clerk in Travis County for 28 years. She said she didn’t know what to expect when she started in 1996, but now describes the work as a calling.
“Quite honestly, I had never seen anyone that looked like me working in elections,” Nash said. “I love it. I was built for this.”
Limon-Mercado also swatted down attempts to circulate misinformation to Texas voters.
“We encourage voters to check their sources of information,” she said, pointing to nonpartisan sources, such as the League of Women Voters, as helpful tools to debunk misinformation.
On Tuesday, Joey Cade, a member of Funky East Dallas Democrats, offered a message for anyone still on the fence about getting out to vote.
“Your vote is your voice. And every vote does count,” she said.
Meanwhile, US Rep. Colin Allred, the Dallas Democrat locked in a tight race with Sen. Ted Cruz for US Senate, spent a portion of his Election Day motivating volunteers at the headquarters of the Dallas County Democratic Party.
“This is the most American thing we can do,” he said. “I am so proud of our state.”
Allred ran a campaign focused on holding Cruz accountable for his views on reproductive rights, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and his work blocking a bipartisan border bill earlier this year. Allred also repeatedly criticized Cruz for heading to Cancún during Winter Storm Uri in 2021, saying the incumbent cared more about building a national political profile than Texas residents.
Political Correspondent Katie Serrano contributed to this story.
