What is voter roll-off and could it play a role in who wins the election this year?

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — When the votes are finally tallied at the end of an election, it’s normal to see the total number of votes cast in the races at the top of the ticket are slightly higher compared to the races at the bottom. It’s known as voter roll-off.

Mark Jones, a fellow in political science at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said you normally see voter roll-off as a top-down flow on the ballot.

“As people get to the lower races on the ballot, they tend to stop voting,” Jones explained. “It gets really bad often when they get to county level offices or judicial offices at the district or county level, because they don’t know who these candidates are and they stop voting.”

Almost everybody will know the top of the ticket races on their ballot. Those include the race for U.S. Senate between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton; the gubernatorial race between Democrat Gina Hinojosa and Republican Greg Abbott; and to some extent, the race for Lt. Governor between Democrat Vikki Goodwin and Republican Dan Patrick.

But as voters start making their way down the statewide ballot, they will likely not know every candidate running for offices like Land Commissioner, Railroad Commissioner, or even Attorney General. And there are polls to back this........

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