Early voting, aggregated
Ben Smith's Blog — George Mason professor Michael McDonald has a great compilation of the early vote numbers across the country as they start to come in. The stats to watch, so far: The demographics in Georgia and party breakdown in North Carolina, both of which are so far almost unbelievably tilted Obama's way. The question is whether this is just a measure of enthusiasm that evens out, of something more lasting.

1 out of 4 Voters Could Cast Ballots Early
Weekly Standard Blog — ... George Mason University political scientist Michael McDonald recently started a blog devoted to monitoring and reporting on early voting. As McDonald notes, some states, such as Georgia, have already surpassed their 2004 early voting totals. He presents state-by-state data analyzing 2004 patterns and the early results for 2008 here. ...

Early Voting Trends Not Looking Good for McCain
Patterico's Pontifications — ... You can keep up with statistics on the early vote here. This is all consistent with earlier reports of huge voter registration among Democrats. Also, Obama has been setting fund-raising records, and the same people who donated are working to get out the vote. ...

Early Voting Summary
Daily Kos — ... Statewide early voting has been open since Monday, In three days, there have been 470,849 early voters, by the following partisan breakdown: ...

Early Voting Summary
Daily Kos — ... Early voting in Georgia has outstripped 2004 levels by fully 300,000 already. 967,000 votes have been cast; of those, 35.4% of early voters have been African-American, compared to 25% of all Georgia voters in 2004. ...

Random, Sunday-Night Thoughts
BlueOregon — In no particular order... If you are a 20-year-old first-time voter, you have spent 60% of your life with a president named George Bush. Ten million Americans have already voted. Barack Obama trails John McCain by less in Georgia (3.8%) than McCain trails Obama in Ohio (4.4%). 13% of Oregonians had voted as of Friday. The Anchorage Daily News endorsed Obama.  Obama has been ...

Poll: Obama Winning Florida Early Vote In Landslide
TPM Election Central — ... Early voting has become a big thing in Florida, and current statistics show that enough early votes have already been cast to equal more than a quarter of the total votes that were cast in 2004. So Obama has already banked a good lead in a major swing state, if this poll is accurate. ...

Florida Early Voting Update: Democrats Pull Ahead
The Atlantic Politics Channel — ... Prof. Michael McDonald of George Mason University is compiling early and absentee voting data from all the states, and I notice that the numbers in Florida, which had been favoring the Republicans, now favor the Democrats. (This isn't a surprise; Republicans placed a heavy emphasis on mail-in absentees and Democrats are placing a heavy emphasis on in person early voting.)  (Note: no one can be certain who these folks have voted for...just what party they belong to.) ...

WaPo-ABC Track: Early Birds for Obama
Behind the Numbers — WaPo-ABC Track: Early Birds for Obama More than twelve million voters have already cast ballots in the presidential contest, according to one estimate , and new data from the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll shows these voters breaking Democratic by a wide margin. Among those who said they have already voted at an early voting location or sent in an absentee ballot, Barack Obama picked up 60 percent of the vote in the new poll to John McCain's 39 percent. These voters make up 9 percent of "likely" voters in the track. The senator from Illinois has a similar lead, 58 to 39 ...

WaPo-ABC Track: Early Birds for Obama
44 — The Pollster WaPo-ABC Track: Early Birds for Obama By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta More than twelve million voters have already cast ballots in the presidential contest, according to one estimate , and new data from the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll shows these voters breaking Democratic by a wide margin. Among those who said they have already voted at an early voting location or sent in an absentee ballot, Barack Obama picked up 60 percent of the vote in the new poll to John McCain's 39 percent. These voters make up 9 percent of "likely" voters in the track. The ...

Early early numbers
Ben Smith's Blog — ... of early voting, but a couple stories this morning should act as a reminder that the exact impact will be in flux until election day. The Denver Post writes that Colorado -- where experts expect early votes to clear 60% -- has so far received only a third of its mail-in ballots, a much lower number than expected. But, in Indiana, voters shattered  the 2004 record Sunday evening. The best place to track the shifts and compare states is Michael McDonald's site.

Must See Site
Talking Points Memo — ... So with all that prologue I want to tell you about a site run by Prof. Michael McDonald of George Mason University that is compiling on-going statistics for early voting in states across the country. You can ...

Obama Camp Giddy Over Early Voting Extension In Florida
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... The extension will mean that votes will be cast 12 hours a day, not eight. So far, George Mason University has calculated that more than 2 million Floridians have cast early ballots. Of that total, 44.7 percent have been for Democrats and 40 percent for Republicans. If Obama were to keep these margins through November 4th, it could create a distance between him and McCain that the Republican ticket can't overcome. ...

Obama Camp Giddy Over Early Voting Extension In Florida
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... The extension will mean that votes will be cast 12 hours a day, not eight. So far, George Mason University has calculated that more than 2 million Floridians have cast early ballots. Of that total, 44.7 percent have been for Democrats and 40 percent for Republicans. If Obama were to keep these margins through November 4th, it could create a distance between him and McCain that the Republican ticket can't overcome. ...

Crist sticks it to McCain - extends early voting hours
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth — ... Not good for McCain - Democrats have the advantage in early voting according to George Mason University's United States Election Project. ...

The Black Turnout Surge, Already In Progress
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right — According to Michael McDonald's terrific website, there are three states in which early voting has already exceeded its totals from 2004. These are Georgia, where early voting is already at 180 percent of its 2004 total, Louisiana (169 percent), and North Carolina (129 percent). ...

Early Voting
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — Get your electoral crack here. Nate Silver comments: There are three states in which early voting has already exceeded its totals from 2004. These are Georgia, where early voting is already at 180 percent of its 2004 total, Louisiana (169 percent), and North Carolina (129 percent). Hmm ... can anybody think of something that those three states have in common? Remember when we were all surprised when the 2004 vote totals came in above the exit polls? Rove found a cache of new voters who swamped the model. Could this be happening ...

Early Voting Roundup
Daily Kos — ... voters over this time period, Obama leads McCain by a 51% to 43% margin). The polling results are somewhat varied among these two samples, but they both show a solid Obama lead among early voters...and instructively, no sample in either poll - not those who have already voted, those who will vote early but haven't yet, nor those who will vote on election day - supports John McCain. COLORADO Early voting is currently at over 75% of 2004 levels with one week to go. Democrats currently outnumber ...

Early Voting Information, Polls
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... way up. In states with fewer African-Americans, the rates of early voting are relatively normal. This works at the county level too. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland), which about 30 percent black, twice as many people have already voted early as in all of 2004. In Franklin County (Columbus), which is about 18 percent black and also has tons of students, early voting is already about 3x its 2004 total. COLORADO Early voting is currently at over 75% of 2004 levels with one week to go. Democrats currently outnumber ...

Early Voting Information, Polls
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... way up. In states with fewer African-Americans, the rates of early voting are relatively normal. This works at the county level too. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland), which about 30 percent black, twice as many people have already voted early as in all of 2004. In Franklin County (Columbus), which is about 18 percent black and also has tons of students, early voting is already about 3x its 2004 total. COLORADO Early voting is currently at over 75% of 2004 levels with one week to go. Democrats currently outnumber ...

Early Voting and Exit Polls
The Caucus — ... a backup of pressure in the pipe and as soon as we turned on the spigot, we had a flood.” In analyzing the early voting, Mr. McDonald attributes the numbers in some states to the Obama campaign’s ground game. Its efforts at registration and locking up votes before Election Day have contributed to some startlingly high Democratic numbers in several states so far. In Georgia, North Carolina and Louisiana, the early votes reflect spikes in ballots cast by more African-Americans, too. So far , he said: “If we look at North Carolina, African-Americans are exceeding their share of ...

Early voting off the charts
The Swamp — ... One of the best places to keep track of what's happening in terms of early voting is the website produced by Michael McDonald (the George Mason University professor, not the soulful singer) called United States Election Project. ...

Early voting in Charlotte, NC
Sister Toldjah — ... There were about 125 people in line ahead of me - I was at the early voting location for about an hour. If you’d like to look at early vote election stats for different states, click here and scroll. ...

Thoughts About the Early Voting
Wizbang — ... to increase participation in early voting, especially with Obama on the ticket. Another point of interest was that in 2000, Bush earned a much higher percentage of the vote in early voting, but in 2004 the percentages were much closer to election-day voters, possibly due to the extraordinary turnout in the overall election. 2008 will provide a lot of useful information about early voting demographics, but for now we are limited in what we can say from the existing record. Dr. Michael McDonald at George Mason University has a website up for easy reference on early voting. It ...

Obama Banks: Clues From The Early Vote
The Atlantic Politics Channel — First, click through the data here and here. Gallup and Pew data show that Democrats are leading in the early vote. The equally reliable Annenberg National Election Survey's data shows that, across the country, Democrats are tied with Republicans in the early vote. Obviously, early voting matters by state only, but these datums are worth noting because Republicans have historically held an early vote advantage nationwide. (Note: Republicans tend to get their folks to fill out absentee ballots and return them early; Dems are investing disproportionately in ...

Find The Nearest Coservative Democrat
Right Wing Nation — ... - totally opposite this massive wave of early voting.  According to a GMU site monitoring early polling Florida is already seeing almost 34% of the total 2004 vote for Florida - stunning. And the advantage for Dems on this site is 45.4% to 39% (including absentee). So with a really high 6.4% advantage in turnout Obama is losing by 4%. That is some massive defection numbers away from Obama. And it would seem a large turnout is not a bad thing at all for McCain-Palin, since it will swamp the Obama strengths in certain demographics. ...

Obama's Florida Bet
Swampland — ... Early voting looks promising for Obama where registered Dems are outpacing GOP voters 45.4% to 39.0%, though there's no way of telling which way those ballots were cast. Obama holds a 3.5% lead in the RCP ...

Daily Digest: Zapping Errors Between Voter and Vote
techPresident — ... without even giving a reason why, a sizable chunk of America has already registered their presidential preference. George Mason University professor Michael McDonald is keeping his site up to date with county-level breakdowns on early vote tallies. One eye-catching statistic: a full half of 2004's voters who turned out in the hotly-contested state of Colorado have already voted this year. CNN.com is also keeping ...

Early/Absentee Voting Summary
Daily Kos — COLORADO Early/absentee voting has now outstripped 2004 levels, with 1,123,173 voters having cast ballots.   Democrats currently outnumber Republicans in early voting, albeit by a slim margin - 38.6% of all early voters, to 37.9% Republicans FLORIDA It's likely that early voting will reach and surpass 2004 levels today. Democrats currently have a healthy advantage among early/absentee voter registrations, with 45.4% to 39% for Republicans. GEORGIA Early voting is ...

Early voters are new voters in NC and Georgia
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth — John has some good info on early voting totals in the post below. To monitor early and absentee voting, you have to check out this site written by Professor Michael McDonald. BrownSox at DailyKos has a great, crisp analysis today, too. The McCain campaign is trying to dismiss the surge in early voting by claiming that most of those voting early would just be voting anyway. In other words, all the people showing up are just part of the existing voter pool, which has been polled and surveyed extensively. But, that's not accurate. Professor McDonald ...

Louisiana a "dead heat"???
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth — ... Early voting has already ended in Louisiana. According to Dr. McDonald's site, 58.5% of early voters were Democrats compared to 28.4% Republicans. And, 36.3% of early voters were African-American (which is several points higher than average.) The early vote was double that of 2004. For a great backgrounder on Louisiana's voting registration, ...

Obama Wins!!!
Open Left - Front Page — ... This means that in order to win the election, all Obama has to do is hold onto states where he leads by 9.5% or more, and win both Colorado and New Mexico. These are both states where more than half of all voters will cast their ballots before Election Day (source). In other words, the elections in Colorado and New Mexico are already almost over, not just beginning. And these are the only two states he needs to win, other than the ones where he leads by double-digits. ...

McCain's Mountain of a Problem
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right — ... . The toplines are strong for Obama, giving him leads of 10 and 17 points, respectively in those states. What's worse for McCain, however, is that PPP estimates that nearly two-thirds of Coloradans have already cast their ballots, as have 55-60 percent of New Mexicans, with large majorities of those votes going to Barack Obama. This is backed up to some extent by Michael McDonald's turnout statistics. In Colorado, the state had already processed approximately 1.3 million ballots as of Thursday, around 60 percent of the total 2004 turnout. In Bernalillo County (Albuquerque), ...

More On My Obama Projection
Open Left - Front Page — ... Looking at Colorado and New Mexico, more than half of the vote has already been cast. In Colorado, as I noted last night, Obama leads early voters by 15% in ...

Early Vote Crack
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — ... Their preference: Obama by a substantial margin. Seventeen percent now say they’ve already voted, favoring Obama over John McCain by 59-40 percent. An additional 18 percent say they’ll do so before Tuesday, for a possible total of 35 percent voting early or by absentee ballot. That would be a record by far, well above its levels in 2004 and 2000 alike, 22 and 15 percent, respectively. More data on early vote by state can be found here. Early voting in California seems to be helping the Mormon-funded anti-gay Prop 8. ...

GA-Sen: True battleground
Daily Kos — ... Update: One other note -- African American turnout in the poll is pegged at 27 percent. Exit polls pegged it at 25 percent in 2004, and it's 35 percent in early voting. I suspect that number will come down on Election Day, but if the Georgia electorate is 30 percent black, we'll get that Senate seat and Georgia's 15 electoral votes. ...

Florida Early Voting Driven By 2000 Anxiety, Official Says
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... location in Leon County, Florida, Ion Sancho estimates that it's a two hour wait for those lining up. "The voting enthusiasm, I just can't begin to describe it," he told the Huffington Post over his cell phone. As the Supervisor of Elections in Leon County, Sancho estimates that by the close of business on Saturday, 40,000 of registered voters in his county will have pulled the lever -- more than twice the number of early voters in 2004. Overall in Florida, the most up-to-date early voting totals are close to half the total number of voters who cast ballots in 2004. ...

Early Voting Summary
Daily Kos — ... Early voting is through the roof in Colorado - fully 68.8 percent of all ballots cast in 2004. 37.7% of ballots were requested by Democrats, 35.9% by Republicans. ...

Early voting resources
The Monkey Cage — ... Many of the readers of the Monkey Cage are probably already aware of these resources, but for those who aren’t, the best I am aware of are Michael McDonald’s site (if you like a frequently updated table), and the Early Voting Information Center’s ...

Presidential Forecast, 11/2: Two Days Left
Open Left - Front Page — ... Obama cruises to 252 electoral votes, and, given the volume of early voting in Nevada, really to 257 electoral votes. From that point, all he needs to do is avoid being swept in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. He currently holds leads in all three, ranging from a high of 5.5% in Pennsylvania to a low of 0.4% in North Carolina. Victory certainly seems to be almost assured. ...

Further Sunday Night Observations
BlueOregon — ... As of Thursday, they had returned 49%.  In the Pollster poll trend, Merkley leads Smith by six points. According  to the somewhat outdated Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight house price index*, 20 states saw their housing prices drop from Q2 2007 to Q2 2008.  Obama leads in polls in 18 of those states (including Oregon). Twenty-four million Americans have already voted (19.8% of the total from 2004). Barack Obama trails John McCain by ...

Don't Panic--Reassurances From a Poll Neurotic
The Stump — ... The early voting numbers in those five other states are simply gaudy--see this invaluable website--and there are a lot of ways to get to 270 with those states but without Pennsylvania and Virginia. For example, the Kerry states plus Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and North Carolina get you to 272. Throw in Florida--which I think Obama will carry--and it becomes a route. ...

Erik Ose: Early Voting Flood in Swing States Predicts Obama Tsunami
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... Beyond election-eve polls, the best indicator of how this election will turn out is to look at who has already voted. Early voting has now ended across the country, and the results are very good news for Barack Obama and the Democrats. In four swing states - Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina, at least two-thirds of the number of votes cast in 2004 have already been reached during early voting. More than half of the '04 totals have been surpassed in Florida (54%) and Georgia (60%). ...

ELECTION 2008: ISSUES TO WATCH
ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society — ... 1. Will there be long lines at the polls? This is the question that everyone is wondering about, with massive turnout expected, particularly among African American and student voters. We'll see whether that turnout materializes. But we've already seen enormous early voting, both in person and by mail, which Michael McDonald of George Mason University has been tracking here. Perhaps the heavy early voting in no-excuse absentee voting states like Colorado, Florida, and Ohio will take pressure off the polls on Election Day. On the other hand, the increase in ...

Hard Data Watch: New Early Voting Numbers
The Atlantic Politics Channel — ... These disparities are rooted in geography - it's easier to get people to vote in person in cities, and Democrats do well in cities, and it's easier to get people to vote by mail in more rural areas, and Republicans tend to do better in rural areas.    Republicans tend to bank more absentee votes than Dems do early votes, in part because a key Democratic urban constituency: African Americans, have been suspicious of early voting. That's why the Democratic leads in the early vote - the only hard data we have - is so significant. ...

Swing State Dems Talk Up Obama's Ground Game
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... on Monday returned, the ground game was touted. In the surprisingly competitive state of North Carolina, a party operative sang the praises of a text-messaging campaign that targeted 13,000 Democratic voters during that state's early voting process. Of course, text messaging is not the predominant way of reaching voters in elections. But the North Carolinian claimed that strategy -- along with other new online tools pioneered by the Obama campaign -- helped Democrats vote early at a higher rate than in 2004. ...

Election Day 2008
Sister Toldjah — ... have been made. Now it’s time for America to decide who they want in the WH, Congress, their city, county, and state legislatures, what judges they want on the bench (on local levels), and what ballot measures should pass. Already voters in the 32 states that have early voting have been lining up in record numbers to make their voices heard. Here in North Carolina, 41% of registered voters have already voted. To view more early voting stats, click here. Real Clear Politics will ...

How Early Voting Changed the Game in 2008
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right — Michael McDonald’s great early voting website has the totals. 31,268,357 voters have cast votes early in America, which represents 25.3% of the total of all ballots cast in 2004. Nobody doubts we are headed for an absolute record turnout in this election. 22.5% of Americans cast their vote early in 2004, and if that number held true for this election, then 138,970,474 Americans will end up casting ballots. ...