Dallas voters take advantage of registration drive thru before deadline cut off
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - There are registration drives open until midnight Tuesday - and there are around 800 people who have taken advantage of convenient drive thru registration events.
Election workers who have done this before say that's more than expected and a sign that this election will see a high turnout.
Among those waiting until the last minute is 22-year-old Madeline Martinson, who recently relocated to North Texas from Georgia.
"I actually didn't realize that registration closed today until I was at work," Martinson said. "I was like, wow I'm really irresponsible for waiting to get this done."
James Mitchell also got it done with only a few hours left.
"It's something I saw on the news earlier, when I decided I got to go out there and take the last chance while there's time," Mitchell said.
Both say the upcoming election is far too important to sit out.
"I normally vote, but this is one that I really wanna vote," Mitchell said.
"I just think if we have the ability to, we probably should and if we want to see the things that we want done in the office then we should probably make the effort, we can to do that," Martinson said.
It's nearing the end of a 17-hour day for the Dallas County Election's staff that has processed nearly 800 registrations so far.
"I'm actually quite surprised because [for the] presidential [election], we had line after line and we would stop and we've had a good flow today, very steady," said Laura Varela with the Dallas County Elections office.
Voter registration is also up in Collin County where election officials believe it's a sign that turnout will be strong.
"We are looking at about 61% turnout," said Collin County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet. "We think about 80% of our voters are going to vote early and we're probably going to end up with about 10,000 mail ballots in this county."
If you get to the registration drive thru just before midnight and there's a line, you can still register as long as you arrive by then.
