When Texas Sen. John Cornyn saw the latest Texas early voting numbers on Monday, he asked his Twitter followers a simple question: “Who says voting in Texas is hard?”

Bradley Bain, a 23-year-old senior from Dallas at Pomona College in California, is one Texan taking exception because he’s finding it very difficult to vote.

“I’m literally spending >$400 to fly to Dallas and vote in person because you ‘accidentally’ flagged me as committing voter fraud in 2018, took me off the voter rolls, and made me ineligible to vote by mail in 2020,” Bain responded to the Republican in a tweet that had more than 176,000 likes as of Tuesday evening.

Bain hadn’t received a response for weeks after sending his absentee ballot application to the Dallas County Elections Department, so on Monday he booked a last-minute flight home to Dallas so he could vote in person.

“It’s been such a saga just to figure out how to vote,” said Bain, who cast his ballot Tuesday during early voting. “I wasn’t going to waste my opportunity to do so.”

Bain’s trip halfway across the country to vote captures the enthusiasm of Texas voters this election cycle — even in the midst of a pandemic.

As of Tuesday morning, after seven days of early voting, more than 4.6 million Texans had cast their ballots.

In each of Texas’ 10 largest counties, turnout was higher than at the same point in 2016.

Harris County, which had 566,741 votes after seven days four years ago, had more than 720,000 this year. Dallas County had 326,149 at this time four years ago. This election, it was up to 392,774.

Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties — all battleground areas — also have higher turnout.

Texans have until Oct. 30 to cast their ballots early after Gov. Greg Abbott extended the early voting period in response to COVID-19. It is unclear whether the high turnout will keep up or die down as the end draws closer.

Thomas Gray, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas, cautioned against reading too much into the higher early voting. The pandemic has changed the dynamics of voting, he said, and some groups, such as the Democratic Party, have strongly encouraged voters to cast their ballots early to avoid possible virus exposure in long lines.

“As a result we’re seeing huge numbers across the country but also in Texas,” Gray said. “The main question is, how much of this is cannibalized voting — people who are voting now but would have voted on Election Day? That’s why we’re so cautious of overinterpreting.”

Seeking the youth vote

Democrats have hung their hopes on new and younger voters, like Bain, flocking to the polls during a crucial presidential election.

Bain suspects he was blocked from voting by mail because of complications from having his name stripped from the Texas voter rolls during a controversial 2019 purge by the Texas secretary of state’s office. Bain said he successfully voted absentee during the 2018 midterm elections. But he was informed that he would have to register again when he went to vote in person for the 2019 Dallas mayoral election, and he was blocked from voting by mail in this year’s primaries because of the purge.

Despite the obstacles he faced, Bain wanted to cast his vote in Texas rather than California because he views the state as his home and “would love to see it go blue.”

But, living in California, he said, he’s seen how much easier it is to cast a ballot there than in the Lone Star State: “Seeing from all my friends how easy it is to vote in California or in other states, and how hard Texas actively makes it, I think it’s a huge problem.”

Charlie Bonner, communications director for MOVE Texas, a group that targets young and underserved voters, said people ages 18 to 30 are showing high interest in the election and that is translating to more people in that demographic voting early.

“Youth voters are not early voters. They generally vote on Election Day,” Bonner said. “To see this increase even in the first week of early voting is incredible.”

Bonner said he was encouraged by data from Target Smart, a Democratic political data firm, showing that voters in that age bracket nationally are surpassing their share of the voter turnout in the last presidential election. So far, the group says, voters ages 18 to 29 have made up 8.7% of the ballots cast nationally, compared with 6.7% in 2016.

In Texas, that same voting bloc has 10.1% of early ballots cast so far. That demographic made up 12.5% of ballots cast in early voting in 2018 and 13.4% in 2016, according to Ryan Data and Research, a Republican consulting firm.

Priscilla Yeverino, a hub coordinator and founder of Sunrise Movement Dallas, which urges young voters to support candidates who commit to fighting climate change and economic injustice, said her group is urging voters to vote early to avoid any problems that could arise on Election Day.

Gray, the political scientist, said voters and political campaigns shouldn’t read too much into the early vote numbers. Though many Democratic core groups have already voted, Republican voters are likely to show up in the remaining days, he said.

“It’s very likely there will be some equalizing once we get to Election Day.”