Getting Out to Vote

FLORIDA, CONGRATULATIONS!! Due to historic turnout, your early voting hours have been extended to 12 hours a day during the week! Keep voting!! "Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours a day each weekday and for a total of eight hours during the weekends. With Governor Crist's order, early voting sites will be open the rest of this week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They will be open a total of 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday, the last day of early voting. 'It's not a political decision,' Mr. Crist said moments after signing the order, which declares a state of emergency in Florida. 'It's a people decision.'"

OHIO, CONGRATULATIONS!! "A federal judge in Ohio has ruled that counties must allow homeless voters to list park benches and other locations that aren't buildings as their addresses. U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus also ruled that provisional ballots can't be invalidated because of poll worker errors. Monday's ruling resolved the final two pieces of a settlement between the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner." Honey, in this financial atmosphere, you'd better not disenfranchise the homeless voters, 'cause that could be any of us listing a streetside grate as "home" if the economy keeps tanking...

NEVADA: EXCELLENT PLANNING! You have voting stations set up in outlet malls, grocery stores, health clubs, libraries, community centers, anywhere people tend to go in their normal daily business. Make it easy, make it accessible, make it fast. 160,000 people have already turned out in the state's most populous county, Clark County. I LOVE it.

Electoral-Vote also points out this poll from the Weekly Reader. In case you don't remember this from your school days, Weekly Reader is a publication for schoolkids, and they do a poll each presidential election of students from kindergarten to 12th grade. This year, they predict an Obama win --55% to McCain's 43%. The VoteMaster says, "This survey has been surprisingly accurate in the past, getting 12 of the past 13 presidential elections right, missing only Bill Clinton's win in a 3-way race in 1992. The survey's accuracy may be due to children getting most of their political views from their parents and the children's views may more accurately reflect what their parents are really thinking than what the parents are telling the pollsters."

No one get complacent though! As this YouTube video warns us...it ain't over til it's over.

HuffPo note that the voters are running away with the election. (that's a bit of humor, folks)
Seriously though, some highlights:

COLORADO: Early voting is currently at over 75% of 2004 levels with one week to go.

TEXAS: "Across Dallas County and into the outer suburbs, thousands of people continue to stream into polling places, dwarfing early-voting records and raising questions about what the preliminary tallies mean for candidates and political parties."

FLORIDA: Early voters already make up 27% of total 2004 numbers (in 2004, early voters constituted 36% of total votes). Dems outnumber Republicans so far, 44.7% to 40%.

GEORGIA: Early voting is already 33% higher than 2004 numbers, and is equivalent to 31% of all votes cast in Georgia in 2004. Of early voters, 35% are African-American, compared to 25% of the total voting population in 2004.Also, nearly 56% of early voters are women, another excellent sign for Democrats.

OHIO: "Among those in Ohio who told WHIO-TV/SurveyUSA that they have already voted, Barack Obama leads by 13 points."

ILLINOIS: 60,000 votes have already been cast in the Tenth Congressional District. Of those, 58% were cast by registered Democrats, compared to 25% for Republicans.

IOWA: Registered Democrats have a 20-point advantage in early voting over Republicans in Iowa.

LOUISIANA: Early voting is near double 2004 levels. Of early voters, registered Democrats have a huge edge, 57.9% to 29.4%. 34% of early voters are African-American.

NEVADA: Democrats lead 54.4% to 29.1% among early voters. Early voters constituted 59.4% of all voters in 2004; this year, early voting to this point is equivalent to 44% of all 2004 numbers.

NORTH CAROLINA: The proportion of black voters among all early voters has leveled off - they constitute 28% of all voters now - but still exceeds black registration in the state.

TENNESSEE: As of Monday, 1.1 million voters had turned out to vote early, according to state election coordinators. Early voting closes tomorrow in Tennessee.