DALLAS -- A cold front will continue to push southeast across North Texas through Tuesday evening, and it has Dallas County officials fearing watered-down election numbers.
The front will spread rain throughout the entire region for Election Day. Our weather models continue to advertise one to two inches of total rainfall for many areas with isolated higher amounts.
The threat for flash flooding beyond typical flood prone areas (like construction zones) is relatively limited because the rain will fall over a long duration instead of coming all at once.
Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Pool does not believe voter turn out will surpass the numbers from the 2010 gubernatorial election in part due to the rain and in part due to low numbers coming in through early voting.
"So with the weather, I don't think we're going to surpass any numbers from the last gubernatorial election in 2010,," she said. "So that's my gut feeling, is that we're not going to surpass that."
All problems reported by election judges are addressed by Toni Pippins-Pool, and Tuesday morning she had her hands full.
Election staff were surprised to learn that Fire Station 37 off Greenville in North Dallas, a polling location had moved since the last election. While the new station was only a few blocks away, it was far enough to confuse voters, who in turn flooded phone lines at the elections office.
Adding to complications, the county website, dallascountyvotes.org, went down for the majority of the day, leaving voters on their own to find polling locations.
Another change we haven't seen in a general election before Tuesday is the state implementing its voter ID law. If a voter shows up with out a valid state identification, they are allowed to cast a provisional ballot and then have six days to produce an ID.
Regardless, weather may have been the biggest deterrent to many, if not all.
"Well, it's pretty wet, but I don't think it should discourage people from going out and voting," said Dallas Voter Arthur Nguyen.
The rainfall record for Nov. 4 in D/FW is 1.77 inches in 1956. It's entirely possible we could break that record. Tuesday could also become the wettest Election Day since Nov. 3, 1964, when 2.54 inches of rain fell on the day Lyndon B. Johnson was elected to a second term.
