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I thought it might be worthwhile to share my experience with an Early Arizona Ballot today. Both my friend and I are on the Permanent Early Ballot list in order to vote by mail. By the way, it has worked well for us for many years past. I went to my friends home to assist her with her ballot as she is vision impaired. WOW! When I unfolded the ballot it was 8 1/2 “. x 20”, printed on both sides. On the ballot ,in our county, we are given many choices: 2 Federal, 9 State, 4 County, 1 Non...

Got some questions on early vote in Texas. Did Greg Abbott say he doesn't support Trump? Huffines says Abbott turned on Trump. Has Ken Paxton done a better job than Louie Gohmert?

The Biden campaign feels pretty confident about North Carolina, telling reporters today that by their calculations, Donald Trump will need to win 62 percent of the in-person votes cast in the Tar Heel State today. I’m not sure that the early vote should be all that reassuring to Democrats, as the share of the early vote that is registered Democrats is down compared to four and eight years ago. In 2012, the early vote split 47.5 percent registered Democrats, 31.5 percent registered Republicans, and 20.8 percent no party affiliation. That year, Mitt Romney won the state, 50.3 percent to 48.3...

Republicans continued cutting into the Democrats' early voting lead yesterday, despite a rain storm covering most of NC. Republicans chopped off just under 16K votes from the Democrat lead: Dems---1,556,483 (38.11%) (+62.5K votes yesterday) Reps---1,286,508 (31.50%) (+78K) Unas---1,220,771 (29.89%) (+74K) Black share of the early voting electorate dropped for the fifth straight day from 19.78% to 19.55%. Democrats overall lead dropped from 285K to 270K. As previously noted in earlier posts, Dems led 2016 early voting by 310K, and the black share of the vote was 21% that year. Please keep in mind that it rained all day yesterday in...

It took 7 days, but Republicans finally cast more early votes (2,000) yesterday than Democrats. That, my friends, is excellent news. The current early vote (mail-ins + in-person) numbers are: Democrats= 1,038,752 (42.62%) Republicans= 691,174 (28.36%) Dem Lead: 347,578 Again, in 2016 when Trump won NC by 3.8 percentage points, at the end of early voting, the Democrats had a lead of 310,000 votes. The Republicans cut 4 points off of the Democrats lead yesterday, and are likely favored to win most (if not every) of the remaining early voting days. (continued below)

Here are the takeaways from this morning's early voting report from the NC State Board of Elections: 1) Republicans cut about 1.5 points from the Democrats lead in VBM/early in-person voting. 2) Votes cast: 665K/355K/408K (D/R/U registered voters) 3) Democrats have cast 310,000 more votes than Rs, but.. 4) In 2016, Democrats cast--get this--exactly 310,000 more votes than Republicans in the entire early voting period, i.e., the exact same spread as today. In 2016, at the close of EV, Dems led Rs 1.3 million to 1 million VBM/EV cast. 5) Republicans have won 3 straight days of early voting so...

I analogize Democrat early voting numbers (VBM) to a Corvette equipped with a rebuilt Pinto engine underneath the hood. Looks great on the outside, but underneath the hood....well, the Democrats have problems. Bad news: Out of 420K VBM ballots returned by NC voters, Dems 52% (218K), Reps 17% (72K), and Una 30% (130K). Looks bad for Trump? Right? Good news: According to Target Smart (see link), which does a "party roll up score" for all voters in NC--in other words, they "model" every voter to determine that voter's likely voting history, e.g., a white male Democrat in rural NC who...

Stat of the day: In North Carolina, men are outpacing women in vote-by-mail (VBM) return rate 34.1% to 31.6%! In Georgia, the male VBM return rate is 20.5% to 19.3% for women. What makes Georgia's numbers surprising is that a woman, Senator Loeffler, is on the ballot, as well as a well-funded black senate candidate (which will cause increased voting among black females). And who do you think benefits from strong turnout by men? And how about all of those college kids and other young voters who took to the streets in the BLM movement? Surely these young idealists are...

We kick off our 3rd election of tracking Florida early vote. The past 2 elections have seen REPs lead in vote-by-mail (VBM) returned ballots. This year because of the pandemic, it is expected DEMs will vote-by-mail in much larger numbers than previous elections. REPs need to keep the margin as close as possible and then win Florida on election day. Here are the RETURNED Florida VBM numbers for 2020 (these are returned ballots but not yet counted). <1% of VBM ballots have been returned at this point. <1% of REP ballots have been returned and <1% of DEM ballots have...

Here are the final 2012 vs 2016 early vote totals. 2012 (ballots cast, not yet counted) Absentee Ballot - REPs led by 79,000 In-Person Early Voting - DEMs led by 247,000 Combined Early voting - DEMs led by 168,000 Obama won Florida in 2012 by 74,000 votes 2016 (ballots cast, not yet counted) Absentee Ballot - REPs lead by 64,592 In-Person Early Voting - DEMs lead by 154,694 Combined Early voting - DEMs lead by 90,102 The DEM lead has been reduced from 168,000 in 2012 early voting to 90,102 in 2016. That is an improvement of 78,000. That wipes...

...registered Democrats saw their total ballots slip from their same-day totals in 2012 (down 1.5 percent), registered Republicans are 13.4 percent ahead of their same day totals from 2012 while the big news continues to be the surge in registered unaffiliated voters casting ballots: they finished 41.2 percent ahead of their same day cumulative totals from 2012. In reviewing the race of voters who have submitted absentee ballots, 71 percent have come from white voters, an increase of 18 percent over their same day totals from 2012, while 22 percent have come from black voters, a decrease of 9 percent...

Depending on whom you believe, analysis of early voting is either a good or bad way to tell who is likely to prevail on Tuesday. There are some cases when it seems pretty clearly predictive, such as in Nevada, where Democrats have built up a big lead thanks to strong support from Hispanic voters. In other cases, it's not immediately clear what the data show.(snip)One thing that we can tell from the Catalist data is the shift in black participation in early voting. In Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio, blacks make up a much smaller percentage of the early vote...

This year's ballots is 13.4 percent ahead of where things were on this same day in 2012..... Democrats have hit their same totals from four years ago on this same day, but registered Republicans are 13.8 percent ahead of their same-day 2012 totals and registered unaffiliated voters are 43.4 percent ahead of their same day totals Black voters have been making up their deficit from four years ago, now down only 8 percent from their 2012 same-day numbers (down 59,200 ballots), with white voters up 19 percent and all other races up 53 percent [my note: Up 53% on a...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-04/trump-shows-early-voting-strength-in-ohio-iowa-in-closing-days

"Registered Democrats are 0.1 percent behind their numbers from the same day in 2012, while registered Republicans are 12.5 percent ahead and registered unaffiliated voters are 43.3 percent ahead of their same day totals from four years ago."

I cast my vote yesterday at the Courthouse, there was a 40 minute wait, I have never seen a line to vote before. On the way to the Courthouse I saw 4 Trump signs and one Hillary for Prison sign.

Hillary Clinton has a black voter problem in the nation’s biggest battleground state. After the first full weekend of in-person early voting ended Sunday, African-American turnout failed to meet expectations — or historic precedent — leaving top Democrats and activists fuming or worried that Clinton’s campaign isn’t living up to the hype in Florida.............. “They’re not doing enough in the black community. I have been screaming for months about this and nothing changed and now look what’s happening,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, who represents one of South Florida’s largest African-American communities........... “The black vote is way underperforming compared...

An abbreviated version of today's posting: all North Carolina absentee ballots have hit over 1.7 million, with nearly 1.6 million accepted as early votes for the November 8 general election. All Absentee Ballots: The 1.7 million ballots, which accounts for all absentee ballots (mail-in and in-person) by sent date, represents a 6.8 percent increase over the same-day cumulative total from 2012's general election absentee voting period (1.59 million). Total Early Votes: Registered Democrats are 4.2 percent behind their same day 2012 total numbers, while registered Republicans are 4.5 percent ahead of their numbers. Registered unaffiliated voters are 36.9 percent ahead...

With the second full day of expanded early voting locations and hours in North Carolina, voters are obviously very interested in doing two things: voting and thus being done with this election. North Carolina's overall absentee ballots continues to run ahead of where the state was four years ago, with interesting differences within the voting method and party registration.

Registered Republicans are 7 percent ahead of their same-day totals for in-person voting, while registered Democrats are 8 percent behind their numbers from four years ago. Registered unaffiliated voters are 35 percent ahead of where they were four years on this same day; Registered Democrats are 44 percent of the total ballots so far, with registered Republicans at 31 percent and registered unaffiliated voters at 25 percent. However, both registered partisan groups are below their same-day totals from 2012: registered Democrats are 7 percent behind, while registered Republicans are 2 percent behind. The surprise this year continues to be registered...