HOUSTON – Introduced by Beyoncé, Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage at Shell Energy Stadium in what her campaign called the biggest rally yet. Reproductive rights were the sole focus of the rally.

Harris was interrupted a few times by applause and a chorus of thousands chanting, “We are not going back! We are not going back!”

She told the crowd it would be a tight race until the very end.

“We are 11 days out from an election that will decide the future of America including the freedom of every woman to make decisions about her own body and her reproductive freedom.”

She called Texas ground zero in the fight for reproductive freedom.

Since abortion was restricted in Texas, the state’s infant death rate has increased, more babies have died of birth defects and maternal mortality has risen.

Harris highlighted the medical fallout from the state’s strict abortion ban and put the blame squarely on Former President Donald Trump.

“Texas has a law now that offers a cash bounty for turning in someone who merely helped a friend or a family member get the care they need. In Texas, the law provides prison for life for healthcare providers for doing what they believe is in the best interest of their patient. In some counties in Texas, they have passed travel bans to prevent women from going to other states to receive care.”

At one point she paused for a video with several people talking about their personal consequences from the Texas abortion ban, and the video ended with a clip of Former President Trump saying in an interview, “On the Roe v. Wade, I did a great thing.” She called Trump the architect of a health care crisis across the country and said women today have fewer rights than their mothers or grandmothers.

Harris applauded young voters who will be casting their ballots for the first time on Nov. 5.

She also appealed to the crowd—which the campaign said was 30,000—to vote for Colin Allred in the senate race because his opponent, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, has voted six times for a national abortion ban, according to Harris.

Harris’s speech was just short of thirty minutes, and she ended it with this message:

“So, let’s remember Texas, your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power. So today I ask you, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we trust women? Do we believe in reproductive freedom? Do we believe in the promise of America and are we ready to fight for it? And when we fight, we win.”

With election day right around the corner, most people already know who they’re going to vote for, but with a lengthy ballot and unfamiliar technology, sometimes the voting process can be confusing and mistakes can be made.

Early voting is in full effect, and voters are swarming the polls ahead of a highly anticipated election-keeping poll workers busy.

”We use a ballot marking device called an express vote and you take basically a blank thermal card and the voter puts it in there. It’s activated when they check in,” said Fort Bend County Elections Administrator John Oldham. “You have review screens and we really want, we really encourage people to review their ballot before they print and after they print.”

Even with up to date technology, issues can arise.

”If anything’s wrong they can give that ballot to the poll workers and they can get a new one and start over again,” Oldham said.

He says that recently happened with one voter who noticed his intended candidate had not been selected after he printed his ballot. He was able to get the issue resolved before he cast his vote. While its unclear how the error was made, Oldham says the machine that voter used was recalibrated.

”Again these are touch screens so like anything else sometimes they have calibration issues particularly because they’re transported in trucks,” he said.

While you can’t change your vote once its cast, from the comfort if your own home you can log on to VoteTexas.gov and track your ballot. You can also double check and fix clerical errors.

”If there’s something wrong, in other words, if they submit a ballot application or if they submit their ballot and they leave off, for example, the section where they have to put down either the last four (digits) of their social or TDL (Texas Driver’s License) and they leave that off they can go online and fix that.” Oldham said.

The deadline to register to vote was October 7th, but if you already registered you have until October 25th to apply for a ballot by mail. Election day is November 5th.

HOUSTON – Many Houston area residents tell KPRC 2 they had to wait in line when trying to vote early this week; a sign many people are choosing to participate in the democratic process early!

GET OUT, AND VOTE! Everything you need to know about early voting for the Nov. 5 election

We checked the numbers, and so far, in just the first couple of days of early voting in Harris County, a total of 242,000 people showed up to vote. That is very close to the early votes cast during the first two days of the 2020 election when 243,686 people voted by the second day.

SEE ALSO: Kamala Harris’ visit to Texas: A sign of shifting political battlegrounds?

As for how that looks statewide, the Texas Secretary of State shared on X that about 870,728 people came out to vote in person on the first day of early voting.

Early voting runs through Friday, November 1. As of March, more than 2.6 million Harris County residents are registered to vote.