Obama's Biggest Advantage Yet: Early Voting
Yesterday, Ohio instituted same-day voter registration and an early voting window effective this year. Doing so has created a serious problem for John McCain (R) since his campaign doesn't have the infrastructure, organization, or enthusiasm to take advantage of this opportunity, particularly among college students.
As a result of its action, Ohio became the 31st state that allows early voting without an excuse (some states allow it only when a voter has a specific reason, like being out of town on Election Day). And while most states allow early voting beginning about 15 days before the general election, some have much longer windows. Ohio will allow voting as early as September 30. Iowa's window opens 40 days out, Montana and Maine are 30 days out, Wisconsin 21 days out, North Carolina 19 days out, and Nevada and New Mexico allow early voting 17 days out.
All told, 15 states that are considered competitive this year offer some form of unrestricted early voting.
But the thing you must keep in mind is that the benefit to the presidential campaigns of early voting can only be accomplished if it has a state organization that is capable of program to "bank" a meaningful number of early votes, so that it can focus its attention to more traditional GOTV tasks in the final week. Without an ample organization, a campaign is limited to simply encouraging its supporters to vote early. Only with a fairly large organization can a campaign can actually identify, push, and follow-up with those supporters who pledged to vote early.
So, let's take a look at the organizations in each of these states by the presidential candidates.
Thanks to Nate Silver's efforts, we know how many offices the Obama campaign has opened versus the numbers opened by McCain and state Republican parties (Unlike Obama, McCain is largely relying on GOP-run efforts):
| State | Obama Field Offices |
McCain/GOP Field Offices |
| Alaska |
4 |
0 |
| Colorado |
10 | 1 |
| Florida | 25 | 35 |
| Georgia | 11 | 0 |
| Indiana | 14 | 0 |
| Iowa | 23 | 6 |
| Maine | 6 | 1 |
| Montana | 6 | 0 |
| Nevada | 6 | 1 |
| New Mexico |
18 | 1 |
| North Carolina |
11 | 0 |
| North Dakota |
4 | 0 |
| Ohio | 33 | 9 |
| South Dakota |
0 | 0 |
| Wisconsin | 23 | 6 |
| TOTAL | 194 | 60 |
Remarkably, McCain/GOP have zero, or only one, office opened in 10 of these 15 critical states.
Among those 10 states no real McCain presence are Colorado, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and North Dakota -- all of which are currently considered Toss-Up states (or very slightly leaning McCain) and all which voted for Bush in 2004. Together, just these 7 early-voting toss-up states account for 51 electoral votes, yet Obama has opened 61 offices versus a total of just 3 for McCain/GOP.
There are barely 80 days until the November election, and barely a month before early-voting begins in some of these states, yet the McCain campaign seems remarkably unwilling or unprepared to build crucial statewide organizations in these hyper-competitive red states.
Considering that the Bush-Cheney team prided itself on the size and strength of its field operation, it's really mind-boggling that the B team running the McCain operation (and, apparently, the RNC) is ceding such a massive on-the-ground strategic advantage to the Obama campaign, arguably the best organization ever assembled and battle-tested in presidential campaign history, especially for a challenger.
No doubt, the Obama team is spanning dozens of states with hundreds of offices ready to execute its marching orders to 1) identify supporters, 2) register new voters, 3) bank as many early votes as possible, and 4) turnout their remaining supporters on Election Day -- just as they did in the primaries.
Meanwhile, check out this incredible response by the McCain team to this enormous organizational disparity:
“When you feel like you have to put that many people in the state to cover it, means you think you’re in trouble and you have to have a surge,” said Jack Jackson, McCain’s Missouri co-chairman.
I think that remark tells the whole story. In all my years, I've never seen political malpractice of this magnitude.
(Thanks to Political Base reader JNail for pointing out the early-state rules and Silver's tally of campaign offices.)
Mark Nickolas is the Managing Editor of Political Base, and this story was from his original post, "Obama's Biggest Advantage: Early Voting"
Follow Mark Nickolas on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mnickolas
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People who care vote early. .
REASONS WHY MCCAIN IS NOT READY TO LEAD:
McCain has been a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq;
McCain claims that, from the war's beginning, he called on Rumsfeld to resign. Not True.
McCain: "It's not too important" when Americans return from Iraq.;
McCain claims Iran was training al-Qaeda members in Iraq, not understanding the war's key players. He doesn't get the difference between Shiites and Sunnis.
McCain falsely claims the surge led to the Anbar Awakening -- Wrong, Sunni's revolted against al-Qaeda there months before the surgem was announced.
McCain falsely claimed at the end of May that American troops in Iraq were down to "pre-surge levels" although two-thirds of surge troops were still in Iraq. He refuses to admit he's wrong.
McCain claims the war in Iraq was "the first major conflict since 9/11" -- ignoring the war in Afghanistan . His pollicies there -- the real central front in the war on terror -- have been all over the map. McCain first attacked Obama's policy on Afghanistan, then adopted it himself.
McCain sayes he supports America's troops but vocally worked to defeat the new GI Bill; once passed, he tries to take credit for it.
Do we want a president who thinks there's an "Iraq/Pakistan border"? Or that Czechoslovakia is still a country? Who repeatedly pleads "senior moments" ?
A military vet who would NOT fly with a guy who has senior moments and anger management problems.
GO Obama!
As much as I want to hope, I will not believe Obama has won until McCain concedes. Please, everyone, do not get overconfident based on smart moves by the Obama campaign. The thugs will do their best to steal the election.
The best advice I have seen today. DO NOT GET OVERCONFIDENT!!. Get out and work the next 80 days for this great man. Only on election evening can we CELEBRATE!!!!!!!
Based on past elections, we should be anxious about what the Reps will do to skew voting results.
Election fraud is their specialty. A PAPER TRAIL IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY WITH RECEIPTS FOR EACH PARTY AND THE VOTER. Election fraud should be akin to treason.
Just like Chicago and the Republican machine. Where Republicans get elected by dead voters.
Oops it's not Republicans getting the advantage from voter fraud here. So why aren't Democrats complaining on this one?
Take close heed about the early votes. Since the military vote is by proxy will that be a big issue? If that voting block goes the Republican direction will that be stifled like last time?
Ask not which presidential candidate your voting machine voted for in 08.
I would greatly appreciate it if the blogs and main stream media payed as much attention to our hackable vote counting process as they do to election strategy. To paraphrase Stalin it is not who votes that counts, but who counts the vote. The Corporatists who backed Cheney/Bush still own and service the voting machines that are used to count the majority of our votes nationally. This is an election theft opportunity that will not be missed by the powers that be. Lawyers on the ground after the election is stolen are too late. Please demand proactive legislative change. Our vote counting process is neither secure nor reliable at present. We need emergency legislation that mandates voting machine accountability nationwide. Paper ballots must be used for the presidential race in states that use paperless direct recording electronic (DRE's). We also need legislation that requires a reckoning of electronic vote totals with paper audit trails in the states that have audit trails before the election results are certified. To avoid mayhem and contested recounts in a close presidential election in November we need legislation in place that requires random surprise audits of the paper audit trail compared to the machine totals. I suggest that readers, who want to live in a actual democracy, get involved in taking back our elections. To learn more please google the DVD "Hacking Democracy" or "Uncounted
Teresa Blakely
You are really, "on-time" with this one! Great job!
Great comment. Also, SOS must do something about those thousands being purged from voter rolls as I write this. This is happening in every state.
Paper trails are bogus.
Paper ballots only.
Why do people still think that a private, partisan company with no open source code, counting the votes is a good thing for Democracy?
Also view: "The Election Files Theft of 08' " (Palast), and American Blackout.
It's actually a McCain advantage, because early votes aren't counted in states where republicans are in charge of counting the votes. Neither are absentee votes. See Greg Palasts work on this...
Sean
Truthfully when polled everyone should say they are voting for McCain. Then absoluitely not vote for that jerk when the time comes. It's really the only way to insure Diebold not being an issue this year.
OBAMA 08
Obviously, the McCainers think they can win states with TV slime-ads. Either that, or his spokesman is a standard-issue republican liar. The Obama team is huge. It is dedicated. It does not require soft beds or terrific food. It is a lean, mean fighting machine. The pampered plutocrats are another story. If they do not hit the pavement in a place like Colorado, they will lose there. Obama under-pays his organizers so he can hire more of them. They live in donor housing, so they are more comfortable at work than at home. The only thing they have plenty of is work. They want to win. McCain's people just want to be seen as campaigners. Their desire to win is questionable.
You don't understand McCain's strategy! He tried running as an "outsider" and a "Maverick" and that didn't work because Republicans don't like outsiders or Mavericks, which is why McCain lost the 2000 primary.
He fired his advisers and is now running a Bush 2004 Swift-boat campaign.
And it's working! He's got 87% of Republicans on board right now according to Pew Research and Obama hasn't increased his percentage of Democrats (83%) in the last 2 months since he clinched the nomination.
Why? Because only 72% of Hillary voters are supporting Obama (up from 69% in June).
Unless the PUMAs come on board Obama is going to lose this election, because every Right-wing nut in America is lining up to "STOP OBAMA!"
They don't care a fig what McCain is like and most of them don't trust him any further than they can throw him. One pundit summed it up: "Like dogs returning to eat their vomit, Republicans will flock back to the McCain banner."
Obama needs to rally the Hillary supporters who are sitting on the fence or supporting McCain right now and whining about how stupid they are isn't going to help.
To me BO ought to push for early voting in swing states like Florida, Ohio and others with past histories of fraud, intimination of non-white voters, voting districts where have histories of being overwhelmed or long lines to vote in Presidential elections, where severe weather can be a factor (like possible snow & ice in Colorado) people who work jobs with long hours and would be difficult for them to get to an election site. To me a well organized push could help bring in 500,000 or more voters nationwide in critical states, to win the overall election.
There is early voting in Florida, and it works well.
Don't assume that early voting will win a state that should be won. Many political analysts feel that Kerry lost Iowa because his campaign here focused on getting Absentee Ballots handed out and sent in early but it turned out that this tactic just got the people who would have voted on election day to vote early and didn't expand his base at all.
Meanwhile the repubs were out door to door all the time making sure they located and pushed out every possible vote. We would see them coming down the street with their clipboards and lists almost every Saturday to keep in touch with their voters and make contact with the undecided.
Don't worry about the Obama door-to-door effort. I've seen this campaign in operation and it's amazing what they can do at street level.
Also, unlike the Kerry and Gore campaigns, they are doing a much better job of integrating efforts with local Democratic party organizations. Kerry especially tended to go it alone. The Obama operation is embracing the existing party infrastructure and putting it to work.
The absentee ballot initiative is an example. Here in our county, that has been handed off to the Party regulars while the O campaign focuses on new registrations.
Ob ama is not Kerry. Nor is Ob ama's Team Kerry's team. Ob ama has produced (possibly) the most impressive campaign in our history. Will it be enough? It should be...but the opposition is amoral and will stop at nothing. The Dems need to stop waiting and hit back hard for evey crazy thing the McBush team comes up with.
oh please we should be awake this time around. when does it become so obvious that even the blind can see what he's doing.(joh
"the McCain campaign seems remarkably unwilling or unprepared to build crucial statewide organizations in these hyper-competitive red states." ???
They know they don't need it because they have those electronic voting machines for which there is NO WAY to verify the tally.
Senators Dianne Feinstein has said these machine will still be in use until 2012, or perhaps 2014.
In such a state I would suggest each voter record his/her own vote and mail a paper copy to the elections commissions certified mail ! make their own paper trail.
The amount of O offices in Ohio show how committed they are to turning it Blue this year.
Minor correction to the article: Ohio has allowed early voting, without any particular reason, for several years. What is new, or at least being noticed as new, is that between the beginning early voting on Sept. 30 and the end of voter registration on October 6, one can both register to vote and vote at the same time.
The Republicans are in a snit about this and may be filing court challenges.
The difference from previous years is that the Ohio Secretary of State, the official in charge of elections, is now a Democrat.
"The difference from previous years is that the Ohio Secretary of State, the official in charge of elections, is now a Democrat."
See how important those down ballot races are? It's not enough to just show up every four years and vote in the presidential race. Government is run from the bottom up - school boards, local offices, state legislatures and those pesky little things like the Ohio Secretary of State.
Remember Katherine Harris in Florida?
Tell all your friends to vote the entire ticket this year. Preferably straight Democratic.
Early and "often" too......t
4 or 5 points in a general election is a landslide.
how about a weekend long election rather than one stupid weekday where voter fraud can run rampant.
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