No matter which candidates walk away with the most votes in the 2018 Texas primaries, there has been one clear winner from the beginning — the voters.
Even before Tuesday’s ballots are counted, Texan voters took advantage of their rights and cast early votes in record numbers.
According to Texas Secretary of State office, early voting is up over 60% vs. the March primaries in 2014.
And while these numbers are making headlines, there is one organization who isn’t so surprised.
“We’ve been seeing a steady rise in early voting since 2012,” says Albert Morales, the Project Coordinator for Advocacy Alliance Center of Texas which serves the Rio Grande Valley in Southern Texas.
“Early voting has proven to be a real benefit here. People see that they don’t need to wait in line or have to wait to find their precinct,” Morales says, “They get to avoid the confusion.”
But just how, do you communicate the benefits of early voting to a population of over million people?
The answer is: start early.
“We started our latest voter engagement campaign in January with a big digital push — mostly social media and email blasts,” he explained. “But we got big help from media outlets like FOX Entravision, Univision Radio as well as CBS and ABC who aired our PSAs.”
Additionally, AACT sent out voter engagement toolkits to their partners as part of their overall goal to get the voter turnout rate in Southern Texas to 65%.
