Timing the early voting
One of those under the radar campaign stories has to do with the timing of early voting in states. It's expected that maybe 30% of all votes cast this year may be "early voting" which sets up some unusual challenges in campaign scheduling.
For instance, Florida's early voting starts right about now, so Obama's down in Florida. You figure his in-state appearance will be coupled with local efforts to get out the (early) vote.
It just presents a weird problem adding all sorts of new challenges in the GOTV effort.
Question: Does early voting make Obama's ground game advantage more important, or less important?
You could argue more important as it allows far more chances to get early voters (and irregular voters) to cast a ballot, or you could argue less important in that it allows a longer GOTV window for McCain's fewer volunteers to make contacts.
(Also note that when 30% of the voters are casting ballots before election day, those late swings in polling don't quite mean as much.)
For instance, Florida's early voting starts right about now, so Obama's down in Florida. You figure his in-state appearance will be coupled with local efforts to get out the (early) vote.
It just presents a weird problem adding all sorts of new challenges in the GOTV effort.
Question: Does early voting make Obama's ground game advantage more important, or less important?
You could argue more important as it allows far more chances to get early voters (and irregular voters) to cast a ballot, or you could argue less important in that it allows a longer GOTV window for McCain's fewer volunteers to make contacts.
(Also note that when 30% of the voters are casting ballots before election day, those late swings in polling don't quite mean as much.)
posted by mikevotes at
5:45 PM
2 Comments:
I guess that I should have read this post before commenting on the "reinventing race" post.
Early voting really does make it more difficult for Republicans to make voter suppression work. Anything that makes it easier to cast a ballot improves Democratic chances, especially in this election where so much of Obama's strength lies in newly-registered voters.
As I said yesterday, there is no vast well of untapped Republican voters in this election for McCain to turn out. He has essentially the same people as the GOP had in 2004 (though somewhat reduced). At best he can repeat the 2004 numbers for the GOP. Early voting therefore doesn't really benefit the Republicans very much.
Meanwhile, Obama (and Clinton) made an unprecedented effort to bring in fresh numbers, on top of the usual Democratic base that only lost 49/51 in 2004. Those new numbers aren't showing up as "likely voters" because they haven't voted before (or for a long time). In theory, everyone added to the Democratic database could be sent (or presented with) an early ballot in those states that permit it, making for a targeted effort with dramatic potential.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 3:04 PM
Good point. I didn't even think about voter suppression. If there's a problem, there's time and space to work it out. No real factor of limiting voting machines in poor or black precincts.
I would argue that early voting will help Republican turnout, although probably not by as big a percentage. Anytime you give people more chances to vote, I would think more people would. However, your base point, that it's still the 2004 model holds, so a slight increase, but not the same as the Dems.
As for the Dems, I could really see early voting helping turnout alot, especially among new voter/irregular voters. If you really do have a good ground game and database, you should be able to get that number up alot.
(It's not all mail in, though. In Texas you have to jump through hoops to get a mail in absentee ballot. True early voting which is open to anyone is conducted in a number of locations, and the process is exactly like regular voting.
So, you would have to actually get early voters to a polling location, but you would have three weeks of working days in which to do it.)
By
mikevotes, at 3:40 PM
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