Early Voting

With under two weeks to go until election day, not everyone has realized that voting has actually already begun in some states – Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio – to name a few. Obama is taking advantage of incredible enthusiasm among the African-American community, banking large vote totals in swing states.

Some states keep track of demographics among early voters – and update the statistics in real time. In Georgia, for example, the African-American vote is up nearly 10% as a vote total when compared to 2004. Obviously, this will go down on November 4th, but if that vote percentage goes up even just five points, to around 30-31%, Obama has a good chance of carrying the state on election day.

The extreme difficulty that pollsters have this election year is predicting how voting blocs will turn out. No one is arguing that turnout among African-Americans will be at a record high -- but how increased will the percentage actually be? It’s a guess, and no one will officially know until Election Day.

Early voting is NOT a good measure on how to predict the outcome on the 4th – the enthusiasm gap among Democrats and Republicans has been proven based on the data provided by states, but what isn’t clear is whether that enthusiasm will carry over to the way when approximately 2/3 of the country will cast ballots.

Also, this might be a reason why McCain is attacking Pennsylvania. The state has no early voting, and thus if Obama starts to take a hit before November 4th -- part of his vote total will be intact, due to early voting. In Pennsylvania, however, any negative press for Obama leading up to 11/4 will be shown in the final vote total -- and might give McCain a shot at taking the 21 Electoral Votes.