Alcon's all-purpose EARLY VOTING & REGISTRATION thread

[JohnCA246]

Yeah, there really wasn't much of an effort by either candidate.  I think they figure that there was not many people that were refusing to register but would go to the board of elections, register and then vote.  I don't know what to think either way, but there wasn't much of an effort.  I saw Lebron James telling people to register, but that was about it. 

[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.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Boilerplate "strong early voting" stories in:

Wilmington, NC

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

[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.

[Lunar]

Democrats in Florida have some reason for optimism today as the state party announced that, at the close of voter registration season on Monday, it had gained nearly 250,000 more voters this year than the Republican Party.
"Between Jan. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2008, 803,909 people have registered to vote [in Florida], including 360,478 Democrats, 253,294 Independents and NPAs, and 190,137 Republicans," party communications director Eric Jotkoff wrote.

"Most striking is the net gain numbers, which factor in newly registered voters, party switchers and removes people who are no longer voters in Florida. Since January, the Florida Democratic Party has had a net gain of 415,580 voters, while the Republican Party of Florida has only gained 169,841. This shows that the gap between Democrats and Republicans in Florida has grown by 245,739 voters this year alone."

A thorough demographic breakdown of the new Florida voters registered through Sept. 30 provided to the Huffington Post showed that 149,562, or 18.6 percent of this year's new registrants are African-American. That rate runs ahead of the US Census' 2006 estimation that African Americans represent 15.8 percent of Florida's population -- perhaps revealing that the Obama campaign's attempt to register black voters at historic, potentially game-changing rates might have paid some dividends.

As the Politico's Ben Smith reported Tuesday, the Obama campaign "is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to registering African-American voters. The campaign has, for example, a major initiative aimed at turning barbershops and beauty parlors into voter registration offices."

In Florida, 82 percent of those new black voters registered as Democrats, with 15 percent identifying as independents, and only three percent marking themselves down as Republicans.
Florida Democrats almost kept pace with Republicans in the race to register 388,834 new Caucasian voters, losing out by slightly more than 14,000 individuals.

Hispanic voters accounted for 20 percent of new registrants, almost exactly in line with their share of Florida's population, according to the 2006 Census.

Meanwhile in Ohio, a spokesman from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's office told the Huffington Post that the state gained nearly 500,000 new voters over the course of the last nine months -- shooting from 7,676,986 voters on December 31 of last year to 8,172,229 as of last night. Ohio doesn't keep track of party or demographic information, but both state parties will surely be crunching the data ahead of "get out the vote" operations in the coming weeks.

UPDATE:
Late Tuesday afternoon, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner put out a press release touting over 600,000 new "active voters."

"Unlike the simple number of new registered voters," the statement read, "the number of active voters takes into account new registrations, changes in registration, and voters removed from the rolls under Ohio and federal law."

"We are already seeing the results of our preparation for November, with absentee voting a success across Ohio and 665,949 active voters added to the rolls.[color] These are Ohioans from every corner of our state who can now take part in our democracy. Ohioans and, indeed the nation, can be confident that our preparation is yielding successful voting administration in 2008," Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/swing-state-registration_n_132618.html

[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.

[Lunar]

Noooo, not Tennessee! Dick Morris has it as a tossup

[Sam Spade]

So in other words, in total, there's about 150,000 more active voters in Tennessee than there was in 2004.

In comparison, North Carolina is right now about 530,000 more voters than in 2004.  Georgia has about 730,000 more.  I think I calculated that Ohio was about 200K to 300K.

[Lunar]

Isn't it 665,949?  In my red-texted post above?

And these numbers are only 2008, right?  Some additional number registered before the primaries, no?

[Sam Spade]

Isn't it 665,949?  In my red-texted post above?

And these numbers are only 2008, right?  Some additional number registered before the primaries, no?

Your number is newly registered voters, which can be new registrations, switches in registration or (in most places) reactivation of voter registration.

The number I am concerned with is...

Number of RV in 2008 minus
Number of RV in 2004

Which is not equal to the number of new registrations.  Remember, voters fall off for various reasons and they purge voters eventually.

That is the more important number, when it gets down to it, analyzed against changes in county and precinct registration.

[Tender Branson]

In Franklin County, OH, 9,280 people voted early so far. The party breakdown:

59% Independents
39% Democrats
3% Republicans

Age breakdown:

18-24: 20%
25-34: 23%
35-50: 28%
51-65: 21%
66+: 7%

http://www.dispatch.com/live/export-content/sites/dispatch/images/2008/10/08/voting_graphic.jpg

[cinyc]

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

[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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[daboese]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/voter-registration-in-north-carolina.html
with data from:
http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/NCSBE/VR/VR%20Stats/vr_stats_main.asp

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This means: If all voters show up, McCain has to win at least 60% of the "none/other" vote in NC to win this state.
If all of those were undecided (and the we would use the 538 allocation of http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/allocating-undecideds.html ), Obama would be up by 16 points, which means a large part of those none/other are probably voting for McCain.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

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?

[Lunar]

It's registration fraud, it's not voter fraud.  Unless someone is going to show up and claim they are Mickey Mouse...

[Sbane]

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?

Apparently ACORN members get money for each registration they bring in, which explains the registration fraud. I doubt anyone would actually show up to vote under that name but I still recommend states go through their newly registered lists and make sure they are legit.

[agcatter]

Nothing to see here.  Move on.

[Lunar]

NEVADA:  The state’s political guru, Jon Ralston, reported yesterday that Democrats now enjoy a 376-voter lead in traditionally GOP Washoe County. “So now the only red area of the state is where the cows live,” he wrote.

-FirstRead

[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)

[Lunar]

BSmith:

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported recently on disproportionate early voting among African-Americans. Georgia doesn't appear to be in play in the presidential election, but it tracks early votes contemporaneously (and online), so it may be a useful bellwether for what's happening elsewhere.

If it is, the news continues to be extremely good for Obama. Early vote totals have now reached 499,582 -- more than 75,000 more than were cast early in all of 2004, according to Matt Carrothers, a spokesman for the Secretary of State. (The state is also newly encouraging early voting this year, so that's a major factor in the overall increase.)

Most striking: The ratio of African-American voters remains extremely high. 37% of the early votes were cast by black voters, who make up just 29% of the state's electorate.

http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/earlyvotingstats08.htm

[daboese]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/obama-dominating-among-early-voters-in.html

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Looks like trouble for McCain- the momentum is really with Obama right now.

[Brittain33]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/obama-dominating-among-early-voters-in.html

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Looks like trouble for McCain- the momentum is really with Obama right now.

That's not something you can conclude from those numbers. All it means is that Obama supporters are more enthusiastic and the campaign is organized in a way to encourage early voting, which are two things we already know.

[daboese]

All it means is that Obama supporters are more enthusiastic [...]

I also think that this is the kind of momentum which is troublesome to McCain in the end. The Republican base seems to be only fired up by rage, whereas the Democrats want to change- this reminds me pretty much of Germany ten years ago, when Kohl was elected out of office.

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