HAYS COUNTY, Texas - Hays County is seeing not only a record total of registered voters, the county has the highest percentage of people registered out of all Texas counties.
- Hays County sets voting registration record
- Hays County typically sees half its population register to vote
- Challenge is getting residents to the polls
The final number of total registered voters in Hays County is approximately 135,000 - an all-time high for the area.
Elections Administrator Jennifer Anderson said the numbers are up nearly 20,000 since the 2016 presidential election. She credits the increase to the amount of deputy voter registrars added in the city, which she says more than doubled. In the March primaries, there were less than 200 signed up, compared to the 438 the county has now.
Anderson said there's a heightened interest in politics from a national level to the local level that's also sparked this increase.
Hays County on average sees around half its population registered to vote each year, but just a fraction show up to the polls.
"There's two sides to that," Anderson said. "Registration is the first step, and then you have to get people involved in voting. We were just about 38 percent in the last gubernatorial election. I believe we'll be higher than that this time. I don't know if we'll be in the 68 percents like presidential, but I do think that we'll see an increase."
The Elections Office encourages voting during the early voting period at any Hays County voting location, since the county isn't a county-wide polling place.
On Election Day, voters will be required to vote at their designated precinct location.