Less than half of registered Harris Co. voters cast their ballots as early voting comes to a close

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- Friday is the final day of early voting in Texas. Over the weekend, the Harris County Clerk's Office will be preparing over 700 voting locations across Harris County for Election Day on Tuesday.

For first-time voter David Flores, he considered waiting until Election Day to get what he considers to be the full experience.

"Maybe next year, I'll do it a little later just to see what it's like on Election Day," Flores said.

Flores is considering going to college for political science, and is the self-dubbed political friend of his peers, so he's been looking forward to voting.

"They usually come to me and ask, 'What about this? What about that? What about these candidates?,'" Flores said.

He knew just getting to the polls was important. Early voting worked best for his family, so they cast their votes ahead of time.

"It's my job to come and vote, so I got to go do that," Flores said.

Flores' family is now among the more than one million people across Harris County who cast their votes early. But there are still a lot of people who need to vote, with more than two and a half million people registered in the county.

"Our office will be working well into the night as we wait for those final voters to vote, and get all of our boxes in to prepare for election day," Harris County Clerk Tenesha Hudspeth said.

Early voting wraps at 7 p.m. on Friday. Over 700 voting locations across Harris County will open up Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. You must be in line to by 7 p.m. on Tuesday if you want to vote.

"Voters will still be voting after 7 o'clock. So those election workers can't start doing the paperwork and shutting down their polls until they vote all voters. So election night will be a long night," Hudspeth said.

Looking across the state, nearly 8 million of the more than 18 million registered voters have cast a ballot so far in Texas.

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