HOUSTON — Felix Sylvester drove straight to the polling site after work and cast his ballot in a matter of minutes. There was no line, perhaps because it was a few minutes past 3 a.m.
The parking lot was lit up in the predawn darkness by towering light poles. Most of Houston was asleep — most, but not all. Mr. Sylvester, 65, voted early Friday at one of eight polling places across Harris County that, five days before the election, stayed open all night. For him, it was about more than convenience; it was probably the difference between voting and not voting.
Mr. Sylvester works at a grain elevator on the Houston Ship Channel. He had been working eight-hour and 12-hour shifts that made it almost impossible to cast a ballot during Texas’ early voting period, during which the polls have typically been open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“It would have been difficult, because if I work nights, I’m sleeping during the day,” he said. It happened that 3 a.m. was one time that worked for him.
The 2020 election now has something in common with 7-Eleven: 24-hour service.
From 7 a.m. Thursday to 7 p.m. Friday, the eight polling sites gave new meaning to the notion of early voting, operating in the cities of Houston, Pasadena and Cypress. Voters in the third-most-populous county in America cast their ballots at 2 a.m. as if it were 2 p.m., part of a push by officials in the predominantly Democratic county to expand voter access in the midst of a pandemic during the three-week early-voting period, which ended Friday.
The numbers made it clear that it was not a mere gimmick. At the peak nighttime hours — from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. — 10,250 people voted at the eight locations. More than 800 of those voters cast their ballots between midnight and 7 a.m., election officials said.
The late-night voters were college students and retirees, men and women, gay and straight, parents who brought their children and workers who walked in still wearing their work ID lanyards and nameplates.
Leslie Johnson, 29, who works for an oil-services company, finished work, went to the wrong polling site and finally voted at an overnight location shortly after 7 p.m. Richard Munive, 33, a bar back who is the son of a Colombian immigrant, clocked out around 1:30 a.m., switched out of his work shoes and voted by 2:30 a.m., a few hours before he started his second job at a T-shirt printing warehouse.
At three overnight polling sites, it was democracy in action, in the dark. The locations were near the old Astrodome at the NRG Park stadium complex, the Tracy Gee Community Center in a diverse neighborhood north of Chinatown and a facility in a historically Black neighborhood called Kashmere Gardens.
Many of the voters at those polling places were Black, Hispanic or Asian, and the vast majority said they were Democrats who had voted for Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president. Some said they had headed to the polls at nighttime, when they could, because they did not want to miss what could be a historic election that might change the political landscape of Texas. Others said it was simply because they almost always work late or stay up late, and the polls in Texas never do.
Mr. Sylvester, who is originally from the Caribbean island of Trinidad, finished work at about 2 a.m. and headed to the polls after hearing on the news about the 24-hour voting. Asked whom he supported for president, Mr. Sylvester chuckled.
It was too late for politics. Or too early.
“I voted for the winner,” he said.
Taking the stress out of getting to the polls
Malea Hardeman, 24, has the type of job that rarely fits into a 7 a.m.-to-7 p.m. schedule. So she was thrilled to be able to vote at 11:30 p.m.
“It really took the stress off of trying to figure out where to fit it in,” Ms. Hardeman said after voting. “I’m a doula, so my work hours are completely random. Because babies are all the time.”
Ms. Hardeman voted at an all-night location at NRG Arena. A drive-in concert nearby, organized by the Move Texas civic engagement group to draw people to the nighttime polls, had just ended.
The concert headliner was a Houston rap superstar, Bun B. For many in the audience, there was another superstar at the show — the young man responsible for 24-hour voting, Chris Hollins, the top election official in Harris County.
Mr. Hollins, 34, is the youngest and the first Black clerk of Harris County. He has pushed to make it easier to vote during the pandemic, tripling the number of early-voting sites and opening drive-through voting locations. The all-night voting event was the first time in Texas history polls were open 24 hours.
For years, Texas Republican leaders have fought to toughen the state’s voting rules, passing a voter ID law and other measures. The initiatives led by Mr. Hollins, a Democrat, have been challenged in court by Republican officials and conservative activists. Despite those legal battles, turnout in Harris County surpassed the 2016 early-vote total; 1.4 million people voted in person or by mail during the early voting period that ended Friday. Across Texas, more early ballots were cast this year than the entire number cast in 2016.
“There are a lot of folks in this county and around this country who work nontraditional hours and live nontraditional hours, and for good reason,” Mr. Hollins said. “On one night, we’re giving them the opportunity to cast a vote at a time that’s convenient for them.”
Free tacos on a chilly Texas night
The late-night polling site in west Houston near the Chinatown neighborhood had what none of the others had: free tacos.
State Representative Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat, had arranged and paid for Boombox Taco to park its truck in a community center parking lot and serve voters. People stood by the truck with plates of tacos on an unusually cold Houston night, lingering after voting.
Jovany Ramirez, 19, was still wearing his Burger King uniform when he voted at about 1 a.m. Carlos Davis, 41, was in his nurse’s apparel.
“Just like with health care, there’s nothing like access,” Mr. Davis said. “If you don’t have access, you have nothing.”
‘This is a way for our voices to be heard’
As any A.T.M. manager will tell you, sometimes things are busy long past midnight. And sometimes things are yawn-inducingly slow.
After Mr. Sylvester voted at 3 a.m. at a community center in Kashmere Gardens, the minutes ticked by with nary a sound, and zero voters.
And then, shortly before 4 a.m., up pulled Brittany Hayes, 33, a small trove of virus masks dangling from the rearview mirror. She, too, went in and out within minutes.
“I work at night, and I typically get off at 9:30, so the polls are closed,” said Ms. Hayes, a customer-service representative and mother of two who described herself as a night-owl, as is, she said, her 1-year-old. “I always vote. I feel like this is a way for our voices to be heard.”
The parking lot was frigid. Ms. Hayes wrapped herself, right after voting but long before the dawn’s early light, in the Stars and Stripes blanket she keeps in her car.
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