EDINBURG — Tuesday just felt a little different than previous first days of early voting.

It was hard for people to explain why, but they said they just felt it.

“There is more people outside. You can always sense it. Even my staff feels it,” said Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Teresa Navarro.

“If feels like an election day, but there is something different about this. The momentum is countywide. We are busy countywide.”

Polls opened early Tuesday morning across the county. By early afternoon almost 1 percent of the county’s 290,000 registered voters had cast their ballots. Navarro expected first-day figures to reach 3,000 by the time polls closed at 7 p.m. As of about 9:30 p.m., the Hidalgo County Web site showed about 5,000 had voted. Voters can visit any polling site during early voting.

“You will have a larger turnout than what is expected,” Navarro said. “Yes, it is a presidential election year; yes, there is a lot of momentum; and yes, you are going to see a larger turnout, because basically they will be electing a new (president).”

For the first time in decades, the presidential spotlight is on Texas during the primary season.

Typically, the divide between parties’ candidates is so wide by the time Texas voters reach the polls, votes here don’t make much of a difference. South Texas, in particular, is hot this year because it is one of the state’s few Democratic strongholds.

U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barack Obama, D-Ill., are neck and neck to earn the votes and delegates needed to clinch the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

On the Republican side, U.S. Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, is well ahead and is expected to secure enough delegates by the end of April to decisively beat out Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for the GOP nomination, The Associated Press has reported.

In the last presidential primary, almost 21 percent of the county’s registered voters cast ballots, with the vast majority of them voting Democratic and supporting then-candidate John Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts.

Hidalgo County had 35,000 fewer registered voters at the time than it has now. Generally, more than half of the county’s adults who are eligible to vote actually register.

Accusations of voter fraud typically stem from early voting.

But so far so good on Tuesday, Navarro said. As of early afternoon she had not received one complaint.

“You don’t see anything like that in the first days, really,” she said. “I think we need to realize that we want the voters to come out and vote, and we want to make it convenient for them.”

____

Jackie Leatherman covers Hidalgo County government and general assignments at The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4424.