SAN ANTONIO – No matter where they were in line Friday morning, voters all across Bexar County knew it was the beginning of the end, the last day of early voting in this record-breaking midterm election period.
"I took off work this morning. I told them, 'I have to go vote,'" said Marissa Flannery, who was casting her ballot at Lions Field.
Flannery definitely is not alone in the process.
According to Bexar County’s election office, 338,183 people had voted early as of Thursday night.
That’s almost as many as the last two off-year elections combined.
RELATED: Early voting for the Nov. 6 election ends at 8 p.m. TODAY
In 2014, there were 168,774 Bexar County voters who cast their ballots early, while 2010 saw 184,579 voters show up to the polls ahead of Election Day.
With this year’s record-breaking turnout, people have reported especially long waits in line to vote.
On Friday morning, though, the crowds appeared to be thinning out somewhat.
At Lions Field, for example, voters said they waited no more than about 15 minutes.
Still, Flannery was not letting even the thought of standing on her feet stop her from having her say.
"I would wait," she said. "Just because of some of the issues that have been in the public’s eye lately. I'm 22 years old and I know a lot of my peers and classmates are voting for the first time because of these issues."
Figures show, statewide, there are more young people and first time voters taking part in the process this time around.
"It's, kind of, like, one of those times where you have to take action," said Daniel Stanford. "And then, you have to encourage the youth also to take action."
Stanford, who works at the George Gervin Youth Center, not only encouraged his group of 18-year-olds to vote, he escorted them to the polls.
"We wanted to make sure that we took the time out to make sure that they're registered and exercise their right," Stanford said.
His group arrived at the Claude Black Community Center in two separate minivans.
Among the new voters were younger teens who were there to learn about the process.
The polls will remain open for early voting until 8 p.m. Friday.
After that, voters will have to wait until Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6.
Below is a statement from the Bexar County Elections office regarding early voting:
"Bexar County has done a great job with huge early-voting numbers over the past few weeks. When polls close tonight, we will tally up the final number, which is already over 338,000. We broke 300K voters earlier this week and even the first two hours on Halloween Day, we had more than 4,000 voters.
"For the most part, elections operations have gone very smoothly, considering these very high numbers. Our precinct judges and officials have done an awesome job handling all of these in-person voters at each location.
"For the general elections, BCED will utilize thousands of iVotronic voting machines. These differ from other machines utilized in Counties where some issues have been reported. Each iVotronic unit guides the voter through the voting process, then goes back through the ballot, so that the voter can view their choices again, to ensure accuracy. These individual units are stand-alone and not connected to each other."