The Official Absentee & Early Voting Reports Thread

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Early voting has begun in Indiana.

I was planning on heading over to the courthouse later today to cast my vote, but am still unsure on the Senate race.

My advice is wait to the end of the early vote period, rather than go immediately. After what happened in 2008 with Dole and her "godless" ad, you can't really react to it if you have already voted. We will probably wait towards the end of the early vote period here in NC, for that, but also because of fact that we have to wait to for my dad's registration to go through. He has never voted before, that I know of.

As for the Senate race, my suggestion would be to establish a list of strategic aims or desires that you want to achieve vis a vis the Senate and then pick the choice that best alligns with those parameters.

[SirMuxALot]

AFAIK you are only registered with a party in Ohio if you voted in the primary for it in either 2010 or 2012.

This is the second time I've seen this claim in this thread.  What is the basis for it?

The link from the Ohio laws posted earlier (http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3513.19) was a section of law that determines party affiliation in the case of a challenge to eligibility to vote at a primary election.  There is nothing in that section of code to indicate that the same criteria will be applied somehow to someone's existing registration.

So where is the idea that Ohio automagically re-registers voters or somehow changes existing affiliations at some point between election cycles coming from?  Not saying it's wrong, but where is this spelled out?

[J. J.]

My understanding is that you can declare as well. 

AFAIK you are only registered with a party in Ohio if you voted in the primary for it in either 2010 or 2012. The dems did not have a contested primary in 2012 so comparing it to 2008, when they did, is just silly.

In this case, the bulk of people registering Republican will have to vote for one of the candidates on the GOP side.

[TJ in Oregon]

AFAIK you are only registered with a party in Ohio if you voted in the primary for it in either 2010 or 2012.

This is the second time I've seen this claim in this thread.  What is the basis for it?

The link from the Ohio laws posted earlier (http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3513.19) was a section of law that determines party affiliation in the case of a challenge to eligibility to vote at a primary election.  There is nothing in that section of code to indicate that the same criteria will be applied somehow to someone's existing registration.

So where is the idea that Ohio automagically re-registers voters or somehow changes existing affiliations at some point between election cycles coming from?  Not saying it's wrong, but where is this spelled out?

The way it works is that when you register to vote in Ohio you do not declare a party affiliation. When you vote in a primary, you can choose between Democrat, Republican, Independent (or possibly others if another party has a primary that year). Whatever party's ballot you ask for, the state records you as a member of that party.

For example, (I am an Ohio resident going to college in Wisconsin but I vote in Ohio) I asked for a Democratic ballot in the primary this year to vote for in my congressional primary. I had asked for a Republican ballot to vote for John McCain in the 2008 primary. From spring of 2008 until spring of 2012, I was listed as a registered Republican. I occasionally received political mail with my party listed on it as being Republican. This time, by voting in the Democratic Primary, I am now listed as a registered Democrat. I occasionally get mail sent to me that lists my party of registration as Democratic. I think if after some period of time you do not vote in either party's primary, your registration gets reset to Independent.

You can probably see the obvious flaws in reading too much into Ohio's partisan statistics.

[J. J.]

Iowa's absentee requests are interesting:

Dem    49.1%
Rep    29.0%
None/Oth    21.9%
   
in 2008, they were:

Dem 47
Rep 28.2
Other 24.8

Both the R and D have improved, the the D's still hold the edge.  It has closed a bit.

[JohnCA246]

This could be a major F'ing problem.

"Absentee ballots cause of concern for some Cuyahoga County voters" Cleveland Plain Dealer

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/10/absentee_ballots_cause_of_conc.html

 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[JohnCA246]

and now this...

"Ohio elections chief Jon Husted restricts methods to notify voters of absentee ballot errors"

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/10/ohio_elections_chief_restricts.html

[JohnCA246]

This is awful...

[J. J.]

Iowa's absentee requests are interesting:

Dem    49.1%
Rep    29.0%
None/Oth    21.9%
   
in 1998, they were:

Dem 47
Rep 28.2
Other 24.8

Both the R and D have improved, the the D's still hold the edge.  It has closed a bit.

Today, in terms of absentee ballot requests, Iowa Republicans have closed the gap below the 2008 levels, but not by a lot.

Party Reg    
Dem    48.1%
Rep    29.7%
None/Oth    22.1%

[tmthforu94]

and now this...

"Ohio elections chief Jon Husted restricts methods to notify voters of absentee ballot errors"

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/10/ohio_elections_chief_restricts.html

Hopefully all of this will suppress voters enough to to give Romney the state of Ohio...

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

and now this...

"Ohio elections chief Jon Husted restricts methods to notify voters of absentee ballot errors"

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/10/ohio_elections_chief_restricts.html

Hopefully all of this will suppress voters enough to to give Romney the state of Ohio...

Please be trolling, please, we really don't need more amoral hackery from either side.  I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it is really hard to tell when people are serious on this sub-forum.

[Minnesota Mike]

Here is a a memo on early voting  put out by the Obama campaign (PDF)

https://secure.assets.bostatic.com/pdfs/Voter_Reg_and_Early_Voting_FINAL.pdf

Of course they put a pro Obama spin on things but they do a good job of laying out all the numbers.  Worth a read even if you are not an Obama partisan.

[Brittain33]

Interesting to see non-Hispanic white absolute numbers be static or dropping in most states from 2008.

[J. J.]

Interesting to see non-Hispanic white absolute numbers be static or dropping in most states from 2008.

Ah, there must be a lot of black and Hispanic Republicans.  OH, NC, and IA (barely) are closer than 2008, so far.

[Alcon]

Interesting to see non-Hispanic white absolute numbers be static or dropping in most states from 2008.

Ah, there must be a lot of black and Hispanic Republicans.  OH, NC, and IA (barely) are closer than 2008, so far.

Well, that's a weird way of making that inference.

[J. J.]

Interesting to see non-Hispanic white absolute numbers be static or dropping in most states from 2008.

Ah, there must be a lot of black and Hispanic Republicans.  OH, NC, and IA (barely) are closer than 2008, so far.

Well, that's a weird way of making that inferences.

Well, strictly in terms of the party of people applying for absentee ballots, R's have been improving in terms of percentage of the electorate.

[J. J.]

Iowa's absentee requests are interesting:

Dem    49.1%
Rep    29.0%
None/Oth    21.9%
   
in 1998, they were:

Dem 47
Rep 28.2
Other 24.8

Both the R and D have improved, the the D's still hold the edge.  It has closed a bit.

The slippage is continuing, so far:

Party Reg    
Dem    47.5%
Rep    30.2%
None/Oth    22.3%
   

It is there, but it is not substantial.

[Brittain33]

Interesting to see non-Hispanic white absolute numbers be static or dropping in most states from 2008.

Ah, there must be a lot of black and Hispanic Republicans.  OH, NC, and IA (barely) are closer than 2008, so far.

Well, that's a weird way of making that inferences.

Well, strictly in terms of the party of people applying for absentee ballots, R's have been improving in terms of percentage of the electorate.

The number of people applying for absentee ballots is a subset of the total number of voters, right? Just to be sure we're on the same page?

[J. J.]

Interesting to see non-Hispanic white absolute numbers be static or dropping in most states from 2008.

Ah, there must be a lot of black and Hispanic Republicans.  OH, NC, and IA (barely) are closer than 2008, so far.

Well, that's a weird way of making that inferences.

Well, strictly in terms of the party of people applying for absentee ballots, R's have been improving in terms of percentage of the electorate.

The number of people applying for absentee ballots is a subset of the total number of voters, right? Just to be sure we're on the same page?

A lower subset, applications for absentee ballots.  Where possible, I'm trying to look at the same time period.  One guy (okay he has a Ph D and writes for Huffington), looked at the differences in NC.  He stated that it was about a 20 point gap in the early voting in 2008; it is currently about 23.5%.  It's not a lot, but it is significant.

Likewise there was a huge gap in Iowa in favor of D's in 2008.  In 2012, there is still a huge gap, but it is slightly smaller, and decreasing, so far.

[Brittain33]

Thanks. I'm still trying to understand how you're getting to there being more black and Hispanic republicans (even sarcastically) from the number of non-Hispanic white voters being steady, even if there's some marginal improvement in absentee ballot requests from Rs or something. Help me understand.

[J. J.]

Thanks. I'm still trying to understand how you're getting to there being more black and Hispanic republicans (even sarcastically) from the number of non-Hispanic white voters being steady, even if there's some marginal improvement in absentee ballot requests from Rs or something. Help me understand.

Well, and yes, I am being sarcastic, the electorate looks like it is more R than in 2008.  Since there was relatively more nonwhite/non Hispanic voters in 2008, and there are more R's voting, they must be Republican.  I'm obviously joking. 

I, not joking, expect the black/Hispanic proportion of the electorate to decline.

[JFK-Democrat]

The Ohio Democrats are timid, so i am fairly certain that Husted will be able to easily steal this state for Robme and the Koch brothers.

[J. J.]

The Ohio Democrats are timid, so i am fairly certain that Husted will be able to easily steal this state for Robme and the Koch brothers.

[sarcasm]Wow!  Sending everyone an absentee ballot application really suppresses the vote. [/quote]

[Likely Voter]

According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll 10% of Dems have already voted, only 4% of Republicans and 5% of Independents.
http://www.ipsos-na.com/download/pr.aspx?id=12073

[J. J.]

According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll 10% of Dems have already voted, only 4% of Republicans and 5% of Independents.
http://www.ipsos-na.com/download/pr.aspx?id=12073

Then OH is going Romney.  The votes turned in are running about 7 points for the Democrats.