Of the 7.8 million Texans registered to vote in Texas’s 15 largest counties, more than 1 million cast their ballots by mail or during the two-week early voting period. For all 254 counties, the estimate is that 1.8 million ballots are already in the boxes. That means that, unless there is an even larger turnout than most analysts expect, more than one-third of the votes in this year’s election will be reported shortly after the polls close. If a candidate falls behind more than about six to eight points in those early numbers, they can go ahead and concede.