Talk Elections

General Election Absentee reports will be available after 09/07/2012.

The first mail ballots have been sent to North Carolina voters. As of Friday mid-morning, election officials have mailed 5,085 ballots to 17,724 voters who submitted requests.

Returned Ballots

North Carolina election officials processed twice as many returned ballots on Monday as have been cast so far in the election, raising the number of returned ballots to 1,268.

More registered Democrats have returned mail ballots than registered Republicans, by 4.5 percentage points (43.3% to 38.8%).

In 2008, registered Republicans vastly outnumbered registered Democrats among all returned mail ballots, by 25.7 percentage points (53.7% to 30.0%).

These are "early" numbers, so the previous pattern where registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats among mail ballots -- observed in many states -- may eventually reassert itself once more ballots are returned.

In 2008, registered Republicans vastly outnumbered registered Democrats among all mail ballots -- not all early voters -- by 25.7 percentage points (53.7% to 30.0%).

Monday, September 29, 2008

Five weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama likely has a lead of more than 30,000 votes in Iowa, based on absentee ballot requests. But Democrats will need to continue their early voting blitz--they won the early vote in 2004 only to lose by a bigger margin on Election Day.

Through Thursday, the first day of in-person early voting, there were 62,024 absentee requests statewide from Democrats and 18,558 from-republicans. People not affiliated with a party have made 23,460 requests, and another 35 are from Greens and Libertarians.
http://jdeeth.blogspot.co.at/2008_09_01_archive.html

The first day of early voting in Polk County was busier than ever for election staff.

By 4 p.m., 550 people had cast ballots at the Polk County Election Office. In 2008, 100 people voted on the first day but that number had been far eclipsed by 11 a.m.

Of those, 401 were registered Democrats, 90 were Republicans, 57 had no party affiliation and two were affiliated with other parties, said Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald.

He could not say who people had actually voted for.

After an initial two-hour rush when the polls opened at 8 a.m. that led to hour-long wait times and was largely a function of Obama campaign efforts, the office saw a steady stream of people throughout the day, Fitzgerald said.

The first ballots are in, and judging from the myriad of Obama stickers, buttons, signs and campaign volunteers enthusiastically trawling down the line in front of the election office, in Polk County most of the ballots so far were for President Barack Obama.

But don’t be fooled, said GOP representatives. Two hours on the first day of early voting won’t necessarily be representative of the 40 days of early voting or the general election.


And a push to get Mitt Romney voters to the polls is coming.

Still, several people waiting outside the Polk County Election Office Thursday morning said they wanted to make a statement with their votes.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to be out, to cast a vote for the president and to say we’re with him and that he’s doing a great job,” said Mary Madison of Des Moines, who was a delegate at the Democratic National Convention.

Madison, who was wearing two Obama buttons, said she usually makes a point of going to the polls on election day but was fed up with this year’s campaign tactics.

“This makes a statement,” she said. “I’m willing to do that.”

By about 11 a.m., Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald estimated about 200-225 people had cast votes. During the 2008 election, the office saw just 100 ballots cast the entire first day of early voting.

No breakdown of the votes was available yet.

It took voters an average of 55 minutes from the moment they stepped into the office to cast their vote and leave, Fitzgerald said. But he heard no complaints and everything ran smoothly.

Most of the people in the line that stretched down the block before the polls even opened said they had been invited by volunteers on the phone to meet at a nearby coffee shop and walk to the polls together.

The first voters started lining up around 7:15 a.m. and most of the group members were in the office’s doors by 10 a.m., though Fitzgerald said a line had formed again an hour later.

Mark Cooper, who wore no Obama bling but sported a union name on his sweatshirt was first in line.

Cooper didn’t have much to say about being first in the county to vote – it was “no big deal,” he said – but more to say about why he was supporting Obama. And he said the turnout, while expected, was “great.”

“I think we need to open up the election process and make it as easy to vote as possible,” Cooper said.

Democrats have an advantage in absentee ballots requested by mail in both Polk County and statewide.

The Polk County Auditor’s Office is mailing 30,615 ballots Thursday morning. Of those, 20,810 were requested by Democrats, 4,024 by registered Republicans, 5,729 by voters with no party affiliation and 42 by people registered to other parties.

Statewide, as of Monday, Democrats had requested 109,709 absentee ballots while Republicans requested 20,458.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120927/NEWS/120927016/1007/news05

Under Ohio election law, you can change your political party at a Primary Election only.  This is done by requesting the ballot type for the political party with which you wish to be affiliated.  Ohio Revised Code Section 3513.19, .20.

If you do not want to be affiliated with a political party in Ohio, you are considered to be an unaffiliated voter.  An unaffiliated voter, which is identified by some people as an “independent voter”, may only vote an Official Questions and Issues Ballot, if there are any present, for your precinct on Primary Election Day.  Unaffiliated or Independent voters can vote for candidates and issues in a General Election.

We have a lower turnout and a significantly more GOP electorate in NC.  So far, the black voters have represented a smaller portion of the electorate.

2. Those numbers are deeply misleading because there are almost 350,000 new voters registered in the state since 2008, only 20% of whom are white. That means a substantial number of African Americans, almost 40%, are registering as independents. Overall registration now is

71.7% White
22.3% Black

Compared with

74.9% White
21.6% Black
In 2008.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A pair of extra issues have been tacked onto absentee ballots delivered to voters throughout Cuyahoga County.

But they have nothing to do with politics.

Misprinted envelopes and foggy language about postage has hundreds of county residents worried that their votes will not count...

To alleviate confusion, ballot envelopes are now printed with labels inside the yellow-highlighted fields voters are required to fill out.

But the labels -- "Print Name," "Sign Here," etc. -- on at least 45,000 envelopes mailed to voters are too dark, leaving little or no room to clearly jot down the information.

The Republicans lead Democrats when it comes to absentee votes cast, about 126,000 to 114,000. In percentage terms, Republicans lead Democrats 44-40 percent.

Despite all the positive trends for them, Republicans are a little nervous. They’ve always out-organized and outvoted Democrats by absentee ballots — usually by big margins.

But no more.

Relative to this time in the 2008 election, Democrats trailed Republicans by 16 percentage points in voted absentee ballots. That lead has been cut to 4 percentage points this year.

The daily update in the absentee-ballot war is like the others: Republicans leading, but not like they used to. Still, it's a lead.

Voted ballots:
Pty     ….Voted     ….% diff
REP        240,825    45%
DEM        212,281    40%
IND          83,584    16%
TOTAL        536,690    

 

Outstanding requests:
Pty    ...Request    …..% diff
REP        731,826    41%
DEM        719,627    40%
IND        345,120    19%
TOTAL     1,796,573    

Early voting in NC outpaces 2008 turnout
Oct 18, 2012 7:47 p.m.
story image +

Raleigh, N.C. - Early voting in North Carolina got off to a fast start Thursday, surpassing 2008's first-day vote count of 117,372.

State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett said they won't have exact numbers for Thursday's turnout until Friday morning, but throngs of people swamped one-stop voting locations statewide and waited for up to an hour to cast ballots.

18% of Iowans have voted, Not 34%, 18%. Which means the Marist finding (just like the Ohio one) is horsesh**te.

18%. Take your eyeballs over to the Secretary of States' website which shows a total of 284,000 in. Unless 2012 turnout is going to crash to unbelievable levels (was 1.5 million in 08, just under that in 04), that is 18%.

Demographic breakdown:
Democrats have a 54,000 vote edge, 49.4% to R's 30.3%, meaning Obama must be running better than 7/8ths of the Independent vote to approach your "35 point margin". In fact, the Democratic "advantage" so far matches the 2004 "advantage", a race they lost by over 10,000 votes.

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WECT) – Early voting began across North Carolina Thursday morning and will continue until November 3.

The first day numbers this year have surpassed the first day numbers from the last presidential election. Statewide, over 150,000 voted compared to the 116,000 who cast ballots in 2008.

Of the 150,000 votes cast, 57% came from Democrats while 25% came from Republicans.

Those numbers are down for Democrats from the last presidential election when Democrats had 64% of the first day ballots compared to 20% for Republicans.

Iowa is firming up for Obama. The early vote confirms the polls showing an Obama lead, but by a narrower margin than 2008. Romney still has time to make up ground, but with over 300,000 people voting the clock is certainly ticking.

The early vote indicates that Florida and Ohio are close. We knew that already.

North Carolina started in-person early voting and the early vote numbers shifted dramatically towards registered Democrats. This is expected, as more registered Democrats voted early than Republicans in 2008 and 2004. A point of interest is that North Carolina allows unregistered voters to register and vote all in "one stop." This has the potential of shifting likely voter models since unregistered voters don't make the likely voter screen.

Jon Ralston ‏@RalstonReports

Huge lines being reported all over Las Vegas on first day of early voting. 60 or 70 percent will vote early in Clark County. #itmatters

COLUMBUS — An Ohio history professor’s analysis of absentee ballot requests found a significant shift in Republican enthusiasm in the battleground state since 2008.

The University of Dayton’s Larry Schweikart tallied absentee ballot requests so far in 2012 and compared them to similar requests four years ago. His review showed a 7-point swing in favor of the GOP.

Still more Democrats than Republicans requested early ballots, but Democrats’ percentage advantage has shifted from 33-19 in 2008 to 30-23 this year.

“In 2008, Obama cleaned McCain in absentee voting,” Schweikart said in a news release announcing the findings. “McCain actually won the statewide vote on Election Day, but he was too far buried in the absentee and early vote count. Early voting in Ohio began earlier this month and could still produce some surprises.”

Schweikart found some of the most significant swings came in the state’s large, heavily Democratic urban counties. Summit County, where Akron is located, led urban counties in pro-Republican swings with a 24-point shift.

“In terms of absentee ballot requests, Republicans are hugely over-performing their 2008 levels, and the Democrats are underperforming compared to 2008, especially in the big counties,” he said. “What this means is that the polls are wrong. For weeks polls have shown an Obama lead ranging from 1 point to 8 points. But these absentee ballot requests reflect a huge enthusiasm gap among Democrats and Republicans, and I’m predicting a total shift from 2008.”

The analysis assumes undeclared voters will be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

---Republicans -- at least some -- are claiming the Democratic machine did not work as well in Clark because the margin is only a landslide (55-29) after the first day and not a super-landslide (60-23) as it was in '08. Well, ok. But the Democrats still turned out MORE voters than in '08 -- 3,000 more. Their machine is working just fine, and the GOP "machine" almost got to 30 percent of the vote. This is still a slaughter, folks.

----Absentees are making the Republicans closer -- the deficit is just under 20 points, still 5 points above the registration in Clark. But the GOP needs to cut into the raw vote number with absentees, and that didn't happen -- at least not yet.

----Indies could (if the margin gets closer) decide the election. But their raw numbers (5,228) are less than a third of Democrats and only about half of Republicans. In terms of percent of their voters who turned out, it was: Democrats, 5 percent; Republicans, 3.5 percent; and others, 2.5 percent. The smaller the overall percentage of the electorate the "others" are, the less impact they will have on the election. They were 16 percent on the first day in Clark.

----Despite Republicans making the point that they do better on Election Day, that's not necessarily true in Clark -- at least not by much. They may be able to reduce the Democratic lead by 2 or 3 points, but not much more than that, considering how many people will have voted early in Southern Nevada.

----Watch for trends. One day is not a trend. So let's see what happens. If the Democrats build up a big enough lead by the end of the two weeks, it will be a firewall against what will happen in rural Nevada. But if the Republicans can keep it relatively close in Clark -- that is, losing the early vote by single digits -- they will have a real chance to win the state for Mitt Romney -- if he can do well in Washoe. President Obama lost the cow counties by 25,000 votes in 2008. He also won Washoe County by 23,000 votes and Clark by 123,000. Surely, the Washoe and Clark numbers will be smaller and the rural number perhaps slightly bigger (30-35,000 would not be out of the question). So look at what the lead is in Clark and what the numbers are in Washoe to see if they can offset that rural loss by extrapolating.

ADDENDUM: One other trend I forgot to mention  in that turnout tends to be signficantly higher in the second week of early voting than the first. So the frist day is a relatively small data sample. And we will know more after the first week if either side starts to show diminishing results.