{"id":188458,"date":"2026-03-03T14:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/188458\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:22:18","slug":"election-officials-urge-patience-preparation-to-cast-a-primary-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/188458\/","title":{"rendered":"Election officials urge patience, preparation to cast a primary vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

A high-interest U.S. Senate race<\/a>, Democratic enthusiasm, plus backlash to the Trump Administration is fueling some unusual interest in Texas\u2019 primary election.<\/p>\n

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, and elections officials are warning voters to prepare for lines and likely slow results.<\/p>\n

Democratic primaries for Bexar County judge and District Attorney have drawn significant attention this cycle<\/a>, as a rare matchup between incumbent County Judge Peter Sakai and former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg has heated up, plus eight DA candidates are vying for an open seat. Read our top races to watch here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elections Administrator Michele Carew said Monday that after early voting finished Friday, turnout in Bexar County has already surpassed the county\u2019s total turnout in the 2022 midterm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roughly 183,000 early, in-person ballots were cast this year, she said, compared to 171,000 total ballots cast in 2022 and 61,000 in 2018\u2014 the last primary midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Top races to watch in Bexar County\u2019s Democratic and Republican primary elections<\/a><\/p>\n

She expects another 100,000 to 125,000 votes to be cast on election day, and said that voters should review their sample ballots<\/a> ahead of time to make the process move faster.\u00a0Paper notes are allowed in the voting booth, but cell phones are not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would encourage them to study their ballot, write, take notes, know what they\u2019re going to vote on, and be prepared to stand in line,\u201d Carew said. \u201cWe have added additional check-ins and at our some of our busier sites, giving them additional voting equipment to help speed the process up. But the ballot is still long. Our voters are taking the time to read them and understand them before making a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

5 surprises you might not expect on your primary ballot<\/a><\/p>\n

Long lines mean that early results could once again be slow to post after the polls close on Tuesday, Carew said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had people waiting in line up to 9 p.m. to cast their ballot on Friday,\u201d she said. \u201c \u2026 I can\u2019t release [the early returns] until every voter has cast their ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our staff will be with the candidates at election watch parties Tuesday night, and we\u2019ll have full coverage of results and candidate reactions as results roll in.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Report will be updating a live results page<\/a> tracking every outcome, or you can sign up for text messages here<\/a> or by texting \u201cVOTE\u201d to (210) 796-6853 to get the results via SMS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A high-interest U.S. Senate race, Democratic enthusiasm, plus backlash to the Trump Administration is fueling some unusual interest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8519,32343,82,84,83,92,3028],"class_list":["post-188458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-2026-election","tag-march-3-primary","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-top-story","tag-typedaily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}