Recent heavy voter turnout trends weren’t repeated in Saturday’s San Antonio City Council Runoff Election. Bexar County Election Supervisor Jacque Callanen said it’s been quiet all day.
"It is at almost 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and we've literally had 7,000 people vote today… Our highest site, of course, is always Brook Hollow, and Brook Hollow had 500 and I think 20-some voters come in,” she said.
“And out of 114 sites, we still have two sites that have zero voters.”
Early voting numbers, too, were not staggering.
"We had finished with 21,000 voters in person. And then we ended up having 7,000 mail ballots. So, all told, the early voting number comes in over 28,000," said Callanan
She thinks the reason for light turnout is pretty clear. Each voter gets one choice between two candidates.
"It's not like the last time when we had the mayoral election runoff at the top of the ticket. So, this is just literally one race,” she said.
Several other sites also reported just a several dozen voters by midday — rather than hundreds.
Anthony Dean Harris is a District 3 voter and cast his ballot at the Mission Branch Library. He voted for a candidate in May who didn’t make the runoff.
“He was young, inexperienced, but he had just the right responses to things. I read the TPR questionnaire,” said Harris
With Thomas Uresti and Phyllis Viagran as his remaining choices, it was each of their stances on Proposition B that dictated his vote.
“Uresti was like very much like was against it (Prop B). And Villagran has waffled. And I guess between the two of them, I'm guessing I'm going with Villagran because I guess the waffle is better than, you know, being in favor of unchecked police accountability,” he said.
He added that he feels a civic obligation to vote in every election.
“I'm not really enthused right now with the runoff election, but felt it necessary to try to make all the elections.”
Former School Teacher Crystal Watt was voted at the Lions Field polling place.
“I was always an American history teacher before I went to administration. And so teaching the process of civic process to students and making sure that they understand the importance of it, especially in this day and age, is very important to me and continues to be my mission as an educator."
Polls are open until 7 p.m.
Check out TPR’s voters guide here. Live results here will be made available after 7 p.m. here.
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