Keller leads early voting in Tarrant County’s high-turnout election – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

On By Littum

Early voting – what you need to know

  • Election day voter guide: Find key dates, how to check your voter status, how to find out where and when you can vote early and on Election Day, and what to bring to the polls.
  • When is election day? Tuesday 5 November is election day. On that day, the polls will be open in Texas from 7:00 a.m. to 19.00. You are allowed to vote if you are in line before 19.00 on election day.
  • Where can I vote early? Early voting runs from Monday, October 21 through Friday, November 1. Click here for early voting times and locations for Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties.
  • How many have previously voted? A record number of people voted early on Monday, the first day of early voting. Click here to see the daily vote totals from Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties and to compare them to previous years.
  • Who is on the ballot? Click on the links to filter races by category or county: Federal races | State race | Collin County | Dallas County | Denton County | Tarrant County
  • How can I vote by mail? The deadline is approaching. Everything you need to know is here.

On Monday, with four days of early voting remaining, political officials say Tarrant County has cast the second most ballots in Texas.

The polling place in Tarrant County with the highest turnout is Keller, a community that has become a political battleground in recent years.

NBC 5 spoke with voters and polling experts who said the energy surrounding the election was only expected to continue until Election Day.

“We’re politically minded,” said Remonia Rosewell of the Keller community.

On a Monday morning over a week before election night, the line to vote early at Keller Town Hall was out the door.

“I’m surprised the line isn’t longer today,” Rosewell said.

People campaigning outside polling stations said turnout had been this way since early voting began.

Election data through Sunday night showed more than 367,000 ballots had been cast in Tarrant County, the second most in Texas, according to the Tarrant GOP.

And the polling place in Tarrant County that has seen the most voters is Keller City Hall. Some voters said it didn’t surprise them.

“There is a very limited area right here that is very conservative,” Rosewell said. “And right now there is such a big difference between the conservatives and the liberals.”

In recent months, the Keller community has been embroiled in several political conflicts, many involving the school district.

Among them was a debate over Keller ISD’s pronoun policy for LGBTQ students and the shutdown and later reinstatement of a production of The Laramie Project, a play about the murder of a gay college student from Wyoming.

Some voters said local and national political conflicts drove more conservatives to the polls in Keller.

“Inflation, taxes, it’s hard to live these days,” said Deborah Wartelle. “So we’ve got to get the Republicans back in there and more Americans standing up.”

NBC 5 went to an expert who said the high turnout in Keller was due to politics and population.

“There are two things happening at the same time,” said Craig Murphy, a policy consultant at Murphy Nasica. “One is that Keller is the fastest growing area in Tarrant County.”

Murphy said the rapid growth in North Tarrant County has driven more people to the polls there — many of them displaced Republicans.

Combined with the current political climate, that has put Keller’s attendance through the roof.

“Any time you get Trump on the ballot, you tend to have record turnout,” Murphy said. “Because both sides are very moved to go and vote.”

With eight days until the results, Tarrant’s busiest polling station showed no signs of slowing down.

“I think it’s going to be busier,” Wartelle said. “Because a lot more people are going to say, ‘Oh, no, it’s time to go, I’ve got to go’.”

Experts expect Tarrant County to break its record for most votes cast in a single election next week.