Fewer Texans will be heading to the polls this year to weigh in on whether the 141-year-old state Constitution should be changed.
Last year, a record 15.1 million Texans registered to vote in the presidential election.
This year, 1,950 fewer Texans are signed up to vote in the Nov. 7 election, despite the state’s continuing population boom, according to the latest data from the Texas Secretary of State’s office.
The slight drop “could be purely because some persons may have other things to take care of,” said Allan Saxe, an associate political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. “For some, it may just be a ‘feeling of hopelessness’ that registration and voting have little or no effect on their lives.”
Or it could be that some voters were moved off the rolls because they moved out of the area, were convicted of a felony, or died, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
“Population growth and efforts to register new voters by parties or other groups may break even when combined with voters who are moved off the rolls,” he said.
The number of voters in Tarrant County dropped a little as well, by 2,808 voters. There still are nearly 1.1 million registered voters here, Tarrant County election records show.
In this election, Texans will weigh in on seven constitutional amendments addressing issues ranging from tax exemptions for spouses of first responders killed while on duty to raffles at professional sporting events.
And in Tarrant County, voters from nearly a dozen communities will face issues ranging from the $749 million proposed bond package for the Fort Worth school district to whether Euless should allow liquor stores.
Early voting starts Monday and runs through Nov. 3.
