4:45pm UPDATE
With the first polls in the U.S. about to close, the early vote numbers are now in for the state of Texas.
State data shows that more than 9 million Texans either voted in person during the two weeks of early voting or returned their absentee ballots by Nov. 1.
That's 48.6% of all registered voters. In 2020, 9.7 million, or 57.2% of registered voters, so this time around it's a little short. Another number of note is the mail-in ballots.
937,870 Texans voted by mail in 2020 compared to 347,652 that voted by mail this year.
2:45pm UPDATE
This one flew under the radar on Monday.
Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth admitted that a “formatting issue” during early voting took place, and some Republican candidates are demanding answers.
12:30pm - UPDATE
According to reports one polling location in Harris County was late in opening today because workers did not connect the machines properly. All locations were open by 7:30am.
More than 153K voters have cast their ballot as of mid morning in the county.
8:15am - UPDATE
As the polls opened across Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a win over the feds on the issue of monitors that were set to come to the state on Election Day.
This came after the state filed suit against the Biden-Harris Administration to block the monitors from entering polling locations. Those monitors were scheduled to be in several Texas counties, including Harris.
"It respects state law," Paxton told KTRH News. "It respects state's rights. It says to the federal government that they can't bully us.
You can listen to Paxton's interview with KTRH below.
Meantime, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are locked in a tight race nationally. The latest polling from Texas shows Trump with a lead on Harris here in the Lone Star State. And Trump could carry incumbent Senator Ted Cruz across the finish line. The two term Senator has opened up as much as a five point lead in some of the final polling against his challenger, Democrat Congressman Colin Allred.
Other races we are watching in the state include a South Texas race that Republicans think they can flip, with former Congresswoman Mayra Flores hoping to defeat Democrat Vicente Gonzalez in a rematch from 2022 that the Republican lost.
Polls across the state will be open until 7PM. Even though early voting went smoothly in Harris County, Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth told out TV partner Channel Two they are making adjustments.
"There are things that we have to work out; we have to switch out some machines. But nothing in a scale that would be concerning for this election," she said.
Hudspeth is also expecting turnout today to be huge, and possibly historic.
"I do believe it's going to be record breaking," she stated.
This is the first election under Hudspeth's watch since she took over for the un-elected administrator, Clifford Tatum. Tatum was forced out by law after the debacle that was Election Day 2022. Elections judge Felicia Cravens told KTRH that the difference has been night and day.
"We're going in the right direction. I am very confident that this election will go much more smoothly than anything we looked at over the last three years," she said.