Alcon's all-purpose EARLY VOTING & REGISTRATION thread

[Alcon]

COLORADO - Republicans hold advantage in early balloting, but not by the typical margins.

From the Denver Post:

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What it really means:  Beware of stories like this.  Democrats are energized.  Anti-Bush sentiment sparked enthusiasm, and Obama sparks enthusiasm too.  This news isn't disaster for the Colorado GOP; trailing early voting probably would have been.  Then again, they need good news, and this isn't good news.

[Alcon]

Boilerplate:

Guess what?  Local media is excited about high early turnout in DeKalb County, Georgia.  And Mingo County, West Virginia.  And about 10,000 other places before Election Day.

(Pay no attention to these stories.  Seriously.)

[Alcon]

Georgia -- Not early voting, but some pretty astounding registration statistics.

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[Alcon]

I've executed a hostile takeover of final state registration information and incorporated it into this topic.

It's basically the same kinda stuff from the same sources, and about as useful (maybe a bit more)

[Alcon]

Boilerplate "strong early voting" stories in:

Anderson, IN
Bennington, VT
Lebanon, IN
San Francisco, CA
Springfield, GA
Wilmington, NC

Moderate in Hilton Head, SC

boooring.

[Alcon]

Boilerplate "strong early voting" stories in:

Wilmington, NC

Hmmm, that's not good unless there's an increase in blacks registering and voting.

Early voting is almost always "above average" or "strong" everywhere.  County auditors/clerks are like that.

[Alcon]

Washington State has set a new registered voter record, the Associated Press reports.  That's really not much of a surprise; any state that doesn't break 2004's registration records has had a disappointing draw.  Still tons of registrations to be counted, apparently.

In Montana, the GOP has challenged voter registrations in Democratic areas.  Most of the challenges are in Missoula, but some are in the Butte-Anaconda area, and on Indian reservations.  About 1-in-20 Missoula county voter registrations were challenged, based on postal records.

Early Florida numbers look strong -- lots of stories like that, as there always are.

In Tennessee, on the other hand, voter registration is "no record" -- down about 15% from 2004, in fact, which is significant.

[Alcon]

Do we have any Nevada registration numbers?  And how many of them were fake votter registrations put in by Acorn?

I think Nevada caught the fake stacks before they were inputted.  Obviously, if they're fake, they've been challenged or removed outright.  Not sure what the process is in Nevada, but that's gonna be a tiny portion of new registrations.

I'll include Nevada details tomorrowish.

Anyway, today's update:

In Lake County, Indiana, consternation over location of early voting stations has led to court action.

Early voting in Cook County, Illinois, managed 1,000 voters in the first ninety minutes.

Out in Alaska, at least one newly-eligible voter has missed the registration deadline: Levi Johnston.

ABC News had a pretty good article on the growing trend of early voting, but it's been taken down.

---

Finally, George Mason University analyzes the voter registration database of several swing states.  The unsurprising result:  New voters generally fit the profile of Obama voters.

North Carolina sees clear shifts toward the Democrats in new registrations, as Josh has been informing us for ages.

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Despite a lack of a last-minute registration spike (so far) in Ohio, new voters generally favor Democratic demographics.

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[Alcon]

Mickey Mouse has registered in Florida to vote by ACORN. But hey! Who cares? Fraud is acceptable when it's benefitting the Democrats!

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/article852295.ece

What voter fraud?

As Lunar said, ACORN fraud doesn't really benefit anyone except the fraudster's pocket books, stop polluting my topic plz

(Because this topic is serious business)

[Alcon]

It's also a massive fall from the first day's numbers.  I really think this is all of a part of regression toward the mean, but it was a bigger drop than I would have expected.

[Alcon]

According to the NC State Board of Elections, about 320.500 people have now voted early, 85.300 of them are African-American (27%).

http://www.sboe.state.nc.us

For purposes of comparison, in 2004, the exit poll said 26% of the voters in NC were black.

It was 19%.  North Carolina keeps turnout statistics by race, which tells us that the exit poll was really, really wrong.

Edit: Dammit Sam.

[Alcon]

Dept. of sobering reminders:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Early_voting_04.html?showall

[Alcon]

Early voting in NE-2 also trends Democratic and black (yes, there are blacks in Nebraska):

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Source

In 2004, Douglas county delivered its vote to Bush, 58-40.

[Alcon]

Remember to not get too hyped up about early voting, everyone. Each early Obama voter will just be one voter less on election day.

I tend to think that's true.  Other than a few voters at the margin, all of these people would be voting on Election Day anyway -- although we've never seen this focus on getting infrequent voters to vote early, and that is significant.

[Alcon]

How do exit polls work when there's such heavy early voting turnout? Something like 1/3 of people are going to vote before election day, so exit pollsters on election day won't be getting representative samples of the entire electorate.

The networks are probably panicking a good deal about that.  My guess is they'll do phone polls and then weight that in.  Or something.  The exit polls have the potential to be unusually terrible this year.

[Alcon]

Georgia ~890k
Sex
Men 44.3%
Women 60.6%
Unk 2.1%

I am impressed

[Alcon]

Georgia ~890k
Sex
Men 44.3%
Women 60.6%
Unk 2.1%

I am impressed

Black female to black male ratio:  1.6551672139937001541451645332082

White female to white male ratio: 1.2286328216654111661335934895094

I more meant that I was impressed that it adds to 107%

[Alcon]

FL was reported this afternoon to be 47% R and 39% D.

That seems rather unlikely.  Source?

[Alcon]

FL was reported this afternoon to be 47% R and 39% D.

That seems rather unlikely.  Source?

JJ's 75th law of elections.

Well, actually, Democrats are barely outpacing Republicans in Florida, so it's possible.  I wonder what explains this (obviously something.)

[Alcon]

Well, actually, Democrats are barely outpacing Republicans in Florida, so it's possible.  I wonder what explains this (obviously something.)

The grim reality of an Obama presidency. I really really hate the sign analogy but if it means anything Obama has little visible support in my community.

The grim reality of an Obama presidency seems to be affecting only Florida early voting, and not even your public polling, or public polling or early voting in any other state. 

It's a bit odd

[Alcon]

Oh, absentees.  Early FL absentees were, I believe, insanely Republican in 2004.  I may be wrong, but we'll see.

[Alcon]

Hmm, thanks. I wonder if anyone knows why?

I remember some people suggested ca. 2006 that it was because of Florida's tax laws, and many people retained residency address there to avoid NY taxes.  Still seems amazingly high, and seems odd that they would vote there too.  Not like anyone cross-checks that kind of thing.  Even among New York tax-dodgers, I doubt the crowd is that Republican.

(Where'd you find that information?)

[Alcon]

Hmm, thanks. I wonder if anyone knows why?

I remember some people suggested ca. 2006 that it was because of Florida's tax laws, and many people retained residency address there to avoid NY taxes.  Still seems amazingly high, and seems odd that they would vote there too.  Not like anyone cross-checks that kind of thing.  Even among New York tax-dodgers, I doubt the crowd is that Republican.

(Where'd you find that information?)

I remember discussing it.

Wish I could find a link.  Did we reach any definite conclusions?  I had only a vague memory of the ultra-GOP absentee thing (I think some red avatars panicked) so it's nice to know it wasn't just déjà vu.

[Alcon]

Here is Colorado:

Party
   
Dem
   38.6%
Rep
   37.9%
No/Oth
   23.5%
Ballot
   
Absentee
   85.0%
In-person
   15.0%
   

That's actually (if the first story in this thread is to be believed) more Democratic than the beginning, which kind of goes against expected pattern.  Weird.

[Alcon]

The initial story said that some ballots had not been separated by party.

Well...there are always nonpartisan ballots, Colorado allows that.  There's non-partisan ballots in the statistics you posted, too.  I don't see the relevance.