BEXAR COUNTY – Early voter turnout in Bexar County for the 2026 midterm primaries has nearly doubled compared to the last midterm primaries in 2022.
More than 35,000 people cast their ballots Friday during the final day of early voting, according to the Bexar County Elections Department, bringing the unofficial early voting total to 183,287 votes.
Of the ballots cast thus far, 123,730 of them were Democratic and 59,547 were Republican.
County Elections Administrator Michele Carew said voting went relatively smoothly, with only a few reported issues.
In 2022, just over 97,600 people voted during early voting: 50,516 Democrats and 47,167 Republicans.
The surge in voters could mean longer lines on Election Day, Carew said.
Voters are encouraged to download a sample ballot ahead of time to speed up the voting process.
While Carew said voting has been mostly smooth, local voter Leslie Hidalgo took the issue she experienced at the ballot box to TikTok.
“I gave them my driver’s license, and they asked me to confirm my address because it didn’t match my driver’s license,” Leslie said in the TikTok.
Hidalgo told KSAT she never lived at that home and it was far out of her price range, listed at over a million dollars.
Workers repeatedly checked, but kept finding the same address on file, worrying Hidalgo.
“It was a completely foreign address,” Hidalgo said. “I was in shock. It was not at all what I was expecting because I had previously voted in the same location for the 2024 presidential election.”
Poll workers, however, were able to correct the issue on the spot.
“She had me fill out a yellow paper with my address,” Hidalgo said. “I was able to fill that out. And she was so sweet, so kind and very knowledgeable.”
Carew said if something similar happens, the most important thing is to stay in line and work with the election clerks.
“If they go to vote and the clerk alerts them or asks them to confirm their address, and maybe it changed or their name’s not spelled correctly, if they ask them to fill out a form, just fill out that form,” Carew said. “Don’t give up.”
Carew points to the way voter data is collected and shared through multiple different agencies, like the Driver’s License Office, for example, as a way information can become incorrectly listed.
“A lot of time, the data we receive from different agencies are not always correct,” Carew said. “You know, everyone’s human, we can make errors when it comes to typing or data entry, and we’re always on the lookout for that.”
Election officials stress that a bad address, a typo in your name, or another discrepancy in your record is not a reason to walk away.
You can and should still vote; you may just need to complete a correction form before heading to the booth.
For those voting by mail, there’s another important detail to keep in mind: your ballot must be postmarked in time to count.
Voters can bring their sealed ballot to the U.S. Postal Service counter and ask staff to postmark it right then to help ensure it’s counted.
More Vote 2026 coverage on KSAT: