Some Austinites who vote differently live together

• Sometimes it's a husband and wife who span the political divide; sometimes it's voting-age children who vote differently from their parents.

What we found: At least 1 in 70 Travis County households that voted in the March primary are politically split.

• Women in these households are nearly three times more likely than the men to vote Democratic.

What we did: Through a request under the Texas Public Information Act, we obtained Travis County voting records from the March primary to search for split-party households.

• We sorted for voters who shared the same last name and address but voted in different primaries. (While it's not public information who you vote for, it is public information which primary you voted in. Also public information: the sex voters volunteer on their registration forms.)
• Caveat: Our sorting method doesn't capture families with different last names — so there are likely more split-party households in Travis County.

What they're saying: The Weinheimers were both Democrats until Bruce Weinheimer discovered talk radio — Rush Limbaugh specifically — decades ago, his wife says.

• "We do not talk politics," Aline Weinheimer tells Axios, but their relationship remains loving — they planned a trip to Portugal this fall for their 45th wedding anniversary.
• "We show up at the polls for every voting opportunity, believing it is our civic duty, even though we know we cancel each other out," she says.

The intrigue: Wanting to keep their voting choices to themselves, many people we contacted didn't want to talk for this story.

• Some people said a member of their household had voted in a Republican primary only because it has historically been the election of consequence in statewide races — not because they were ideologically conservative.

The big picture: The places where we live, pray and work are increasingly crowded with people who live and think and vote as we do, the formerly Austin-based journalist Bill Bishop observed in his groundbreaking 2008 book, "The Big Sort."

• Researchers have found that people of opposite political parties avoid dating one another, avoid living near one another and worry about their offspring marrying someone outside their party, Tufts University political scientist Eitan Hersh has observed.

Zoom in: In Oak Hill, Gordon Falk, an evangelical Christian who runs a learning center, tends to vote differently from his wife, Milaka Falk, who works in the University of Texas' Moody College of Communication.

• "In a good and loving relationship you call each other out on stuff," Milaka says, describing the influence working at the university and her exposure to LGBTQ+ communities — and the feeling that her gender "is being attacked in health care" — has had her on her increasingly Democratic politics.
• She "is a softening influence" on me, he says. (He voted, as usual, in the Republican primary in March — specifically to vote against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate race, he said. He said he's likely to vote for state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin) in this general election.)

Between the lines: The political divide has extended to the next generation. "Our daughter leans more left and our son leans more right," Milaka Falk says.

• Her son's political sensibility is a "little source of tension for me," she says.
• But, she adds: "We both want them to take ownership of their values, of their faith — and don't want to slam in their head, 'This is what you're going to believe.' Bringing a hammer down is not productive."