Early voting 'favours Obama'
In Florida, North Carolina and Nevada – three of Mr Obama’s top target states – registered Democrats have outnumbered Republicans two to one in early voting so far.
“With as many as one-third of voters likely to cast their ballot before election day, every day more are cast and the campaign is effectively over for them,” Mr Cook wrote.
“The longer Obama has this kind of lead and the more votes are cast early, the more voters are out of the pool for McCain.”
This year, queues of voters across the country have confirmed that early voting is taking place on a scale greater than ever before; 20 per cent of all voters cast their ballots early in 2004, compared with 15 per cent in 2000. The apparent increase reflects growing acceptance of the practice by states to make it easier for people to vote and to reduce pressure on polling stations on election day.
Early voting has been under way in Virginia for weeks while others, including Florida and Colorado, started on Monday.
In Georgia, more than 750,000 people – nearly a quarter of the state’s 2004 turnout – have already voted, with particularly high volumes in counties with large black populations in and around Atlanta.
In Ohio, the state that decided the 2004 election in favour of George W. Bush, registered Democrats are out-voting Republicans by more than 4-to-1 in Democratic-dominated Cuyahoga County, outstripping John Kerry’s 2-to-1 margin in 2004. In Republican-dominated Hamilton County, which Mr Bush won by 53 per cent, Democrats have so far cast three in five early votes.
Early voting ‘favours Obama’
By Daniel Dombey and Andrew Ward in Washington
Published: October 22 2008 19:34 | Last updated: October 22 2008 19:34
Millions of US citizens voting early in the presidential elections are locking in Barack Obama’s opinion poll lead, analysts and commentators say.
posted by Whitney Tilson at 7:10 PM
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