Vote Early!
Posted by Michelle Moquin on October 21st, 2014
President Obama just did!
Good morning!
From The Wash Po:
Both parties poured big money into early voting. Who’s got the edge?
For candidates in tight races and the parties that fund expensive get-out-the-vote efforts, Election Day has turned into Election Month: By Monday, voters in 34 states and the District of Columbia will be able to cast ballots in person.
The success or failure of each party’s efforts to get voters to the polls early will determine the outcome of critical contests across the nation, including the battle for control of the Senate. Both parties have invested accordingly — and early data suggests the millions of dollars they’ve poured into those efforts are paying off.
In Iowa, where Rep. Bruce Braley (D) and state Sen. Joni Ernst (R) are fighting over an open Senate seat, more than 185,000 people had cast ballots by Friday — a far higher number than had voted by this time during the last midterms in 2010. More than 782,000 Floridians have already cast their ballots this year, a little more than one-third the number who voted early in 2010.
More than 100,000 voters have cast ballots in each of these three states: California, Georgia and Michigan. Over the weekend, early-vote locations opened in Nevada and New Mexico. And on Monday, voters will be able to cast in-person ballots in Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, North Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, with three states slated to begin early voting on Tuesday.
Since the first ballots of the 2014 midterm elections were cast in early September, in North Carolina, at least 1.7 million people have voted in this year’s elections, according to public records compiled by Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who runs the U.S. Elections Project.
Not every state that conducts early voting makes its voting statistics public. Three states — Oregon, Washington and Colorado — will conduct their elections entirely by mail this year, and ballots have already been sent in all three states. Combined with incomplete data from other states, that means the total number of votes cast probably exceeds several million.
The higher-than-expected turnout, long before Election Day, suggests early predictions of dismally low turnout might be too pessimistic.
“There’s going to be high turnout, both in the early vote and on Election Day combined,” McDonald said.
This year, Senate Democrats have invested heavily in what they call the Bannock Street Project, a multimillion-dollar effort to register, identify and turn out what they call “drop-off” voters, registered voters who tend to show up in a presidential year but “drop off” in a lower-turnout midterm.
Getting those people to cast a ballot “is absolutely critical” for Democratic hopes of keeping the Senate, said Matt Canter, deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “There’s a whole lot that’s critical to our efforts to hold the Senate. There’s no question this is one of the fundamental pieces, but we’ve been preparing for this for a long time.”
After the 2012 elections, in which President Obama’s campaign used early-voting windows to run up their vote totals long before November, Republicans also have redoubled their efforts to drive their supporters to the polls before Election Day. Americans for Prosperity, the grass-roots organization attached to the network of conservative donors including the libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch, has invested $125 million in voter mobilization projects — money that is apparently paying off.
With incomplete statistics, it isn’t clear which party has the edge overall. But it is clear that in some areas, Republicans have maintained or improved on past efforts to turn voters out before Election Day.
About 43 percent of Iowa voters who have already voted are Democrats, a sign that the party is turning out voters who might otherwise have stayed home. But around 40 percent are Republicans, a dramatic improvement over the party’s performance in 2012, when just 32 percent of the early electorate was registered Republican, and 2010, when 38 percent of early voters were Republicans.
In Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott (R) and his opponent, former governor Charlie Crist (D), have invested heavily in canvassing operations, Scott deputy campaign manager Tim Saler pointed to early statistics that show Republicans making up 48 percent of the early-vote total, compared with about 35 percent for Democrats.
That’s a nearly identical advantage to the one Scott had in 2010, when Republicans outnumbered Democrats 49 percent to 37 percent among early voters. That year, Scott won election by just over one percentage point. Many Republican-leaning counties in Florida don’t open their early voting locations until Saturday.
In 2012, when Democrats outnumbered Republicans in early voting by almost 4 percentage points, Obama won Florida by less than one point.
With numbers that tight, it’s no shock that early voting has become the latest partisan battleground in state legislatures nationwide. Between 2000 and 2010, Democratic-led legislatures expanded early-voting hours in a number of states. And since 2010, Republican-led legislatures in eight states have curtailed the number of days or hours during which early voting can take place, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Republicans in Missouri advanced a ballot measure that would create a six-day window for early voting — the first time voters there will be allowed to cast a ballot in person before Election Day — after early-voting supporters threatened to put a measure requiring six weeks of early voting on this year’s ballot. Voters in Connecticut this year will decide whether to remove language from the state constitution that prohibits early voting.
Methods for turning early voters out to the polls vary by state. Some campaigns rent vans or buses to drive voters to polling places. Democrats have long used Sunday church services to turn out African American voters, a practice they call “souls to the polls.” Every campaign will spend the next two weeks knocking on as many doors as possible.
The public records showing who has voted and who hasn’t help campaigns focus on turning out voters most likely to back their candidates. Campaigns and party committees have spent months, and tens of millions of dollars, identifying their supporters. Once those supporters vote, the campaigns can cross them off the target list and move on to the next potential voter.
McDonald, the University of Florida political scientist, said the focus on getting people to the polls amounted to a grand experiment, one academics have been theorizing about for years. Democrats are working to change the electorate through a concerted focus on voter mobilization, and Republicans are aiming to make up in an area where they’ve fallen behind.
“This is what the election is going to come down to: Can Democrats overcome the turnout deficits they have among their key constituencies — young people, poor people, minorities,” McDonald said. “This is a huge experiment. This is something that political scientists and parties have been doing experiments on, voter mobilization, for the last decade. And this is being done on a big scale.”
*****
Readers: Let’s get the edge! The time is drawing near and we cannot rest on our laurels and expect miracles to happen unless we all get involved. That means everyone. We’ve done a good job and we’re now coming to the finish line. I know so many of you, like me, have given it your all for the past 6 years. I’m not going to give up now, and I know you aren’t either. This is the time where we must do more than we have ever done before or we will surely feel the repercussions of the right should they become the majority. And it won’t be pretty or a party.
This is about EVERYONE getting involved. Miracles will happen when we all do as best as we can. It is not enough to go to the polls and vote. We must encourage others to get there too, even if it means we have to pick them up and wait for hours in voting lines to make sure everyone casts their vote. Really, our effort is quite minimal when you realize the impact of our efforts, will be for decades to come. Let’s ensure that our efforts pay off for the Dems, so that our future will be promising.
Get to the polls and vote early, especially if you feel that it will be challenging voting on election day! And then help someone else get to the polls to vote.
What will you do to help people get to the polls and vote? Blog me.
Adolfo, Juanita, Sophia…et al: Right on. Thanks for taking the time to comment on the rest of the write that I personally didn’t address.
Bach: Thanks for reading for six years and for posting your first comment! FYI: It was not my write, therefore I did not personally include anything in the write. It was taken word for word from a write I found on NPR.
Alycedale: Thanks for letting me know that I was not clear in my message. I agree with you. I completely disagree that laws should be passed against this practice. My comment was simply stating that it was “amazing” (not in a good way) that we could get a law passed but that we can’t seem to get laws passed about men that are “disrespectful” to women walking the streets. My point was…Whether you think “sagging pants” are disrespectful or not, they aren’t harming anyone unless you consider an unsightly visual as harm. Women, on the other hand, are being disrespected on the streets by men, and it is harming women.
Being in the fashion industry, I was focusing more on the “fashion statement” that was being made in the write. Clothing is a form of self expression, and I feel that you should be able to wear anything that you desire. (This does not include graphic or written statements on clothing that disses an individual in a racist or sexist, etc. manner.) I wasn’t addressing much else in the write – leaving it up to the rest of the readers to comment on.
Thanks for bringing it up, though. Since my comment was clearly unclear, it probably was not clear to other readers either. I HOPE it is now.
Rita: I read that write last night. Sickening how low the right will go to win. It just means that we too need to be “vigilant.” (That’s a nod to you Alycedale and Bach) Vigilant: An attitude that we all need to possess right now.
Irene: I intend to spare no power to defeat them.
Helen: I appreciate that you have that much confidence in me. I have confidence in you too. And I know that if we all come together and voice what we know is right and appeal to our sisters, they will see that now is the time to seize our equality and independence, step up and lose the lock-step, and vote in support of our sisters. It doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. Women have the majority of the voting power. We’re just stupid if we don’t take advantage when we can. This is our time…all we have to do is take it.
Jamie: I applaud you for not joining the crowd. I’m happy that you are a strong, thinking woman who sees that the sick blatant acts of harassment and intimidation of OTWs is wrong. Now, I encourage you to take the next step and have your own meeting with the other women and inspire them to think and do as you do.
The fact that you even read my blog tells me that you are an independent woman with her own opinions. And, if you’ve been reading here for even a short while, you are well prepared to influence them to do the right thing. I have total faith.
Pattie: Wonderful comment – Love the enthusiasm and advice! I HOPE all of my readers will read and heed. And of course, take advantage of early voting if you can.
Teresa: What world are you living in? More importantly, what media are you listening to? Evidently it is Faux FOX news. You’re being brainwashed with lies. C’mon sister, you can do much better by using your own mind. Empower yourself and empower other women, by thinking for yourself, and inspiring other women to do the same.
I’m done. Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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October 21st, 2014 at 12:24 pm
LOL. How can you not love this guy?
October 21st, 2014 at 2:16 pm
MikeTM,
Those were 2 very thought-provoking posts, I appreciate that info.
If you keep a people in ‘barely surviving’ mode via war or ebola (or you name it) there’s no way they can gather resources to build an education that can compete, those bastards behind that are disgusting humans, just more ‘thinning of the population’ from the Koch Bros ilk…
I’m all for ZPG bc more humans on this planet will make it un-sustainable at some point soon but really there has to be a better way to stop the population growth than thinning it through killing, warring, etc…
It’s all so wrong…
Luv, Zen Lill
October 21st, 2014 at 2:29 pm
Michelle, I figured you must have been emphasizing something on that order. Thanks for affirming my thought. I agree with you that it should be the women who show men that want to show their ass to the world it is disgusting.
I also agree the best way to do that is to send the tasteless idiot packing.
October 21st, 2014 at 2:31 pm
I agree with you Zen Lill. But the reason these racists are doing what they are doing has nothing to do with thinning the population to save the planet. They are doing it because they want to commit genocide and prevent OTWs from competing economically with them.
October 21st, 2014 at 4:01 pm
Yes Greta agreed should’ve added that to my comment, I thought mentioning Koch Bros Ilk inferred that, I’ll be more clear in the future thanks for the ronder that inferences don’t work so well here (including other things that could get lost in translation like my stream of consciousness writing sometimes).
-ZL
October 21st, 2014 at 4:01 pm
Reminder*
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:01 am
[…] Cynthia: Great question. My thoughts exactly! […]
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:22 am
the sociopathic GOP legislatures in the red states that are making the new draconian voter id laws, are also sure to :
- disallow same day registration
- reduce early voting days and hours
- CLOSING certain state DMV’s and/or reduce the DMV hours
- North Carolina got real creative and is taxing out of state students that may want to vote. They passed some law that said an additional tax would be imposed on them (the paying parents) if they registered to vote in that state, making an excuse that it costs the state more money to process.
Hey kids….now lets list out all the other ways that the GOP is suppressing the vote besides voter id laws:
- voter intimidation
– voter caging – sending out info saying that if you DON’T contact the state you will be purged
– general voter list purging (especially if you have an ethnic sounding name (hello Florida, Gov Jeb Bush in 2000 and Scott in 2012)
– losing registrations (looking at you Georgia)
– the 3 ft rule (Wisconsin) that allows a “poll watcher” can stand that close to you while you vote (intimidation)
– carrying open carry guns to voter lines (intimidation)
– billboards saying have you paid your parking tickets etc. placed minority neighborhoods (Ohio)
– eliminating ACORN
– taxing league of Women Voters for doing registrations
– mailing incorrect sample ballots with incorrect dates/hours to vote
And the list goes on. WHEN ARE WE TAKING TO THE STREETS….?
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:24 am
“Actually, the Republican Party’s past record on civil rights is not so bad. It’s the present that is the problem.” Nothing could be further from thr truth.
In 1981, the RNC in New Jersey sent out postcards to voters and challenging any voter where the post card was returned as undelivered or undeliverable (some 45,000). The areas where the post cards were sent were overwhelmingly black.
The RNC calls this “unremitting and ingenious” tactic “caging.” “Caging” is where the RNC makes a systematic attempt at minority voter suppression by creating massive mailing lists of voters and challenging them on the claim the voters do not reside at the location listed on the voter rolls.
The practice was challenged in court and a consent decree was entered into by the Republican National Committee which prohibited such practices by the RNC nationally. Consent Order, Democratic National Committee v. Republican National Committee, CA No. 81-3876 (D. N.J. entered Nov. 1, 1982).
In 1986, in Louisiana, the RNC engaged in a similar post card mailing effort attempting to have 31,000 voters removed from the voter registration rolls, the consent decree was re-opened by the Democratic National Committee and stopped these practices. Settlement and Stipulation and Order of Dismissal, Democratic National Committee v. Republican National Committee, CA No. 81-3876 (D. N.J. entered July 27, 1987).
In 2004, the RNC did it again in Ohio and tried to challenge some 35,000 minority voters which was enjoined by the Ohio District Court. Miller v. Blackwell, 348 F. Supp. 916 (S.D. Ohio 2004),affirmed, 388 F 3d 546 (6th Cir. 2004).
In 2008, there was a new twist added to the RNC “caging” arsenal. The Michigan Republican Party sent the post cards to addresses in low-income and minority neighborhoods where the RNC doesn’t get support and prepared to challenge the predominantly black and Hispanic voters from lists of persons which had foreclosures done on their homes! After another suit was filed, the RNC backed off, again!
In 2008, some covered states the GOP sought to suppress minority votes by subterfuge by sending out fliers or mailers to the black and Hispanic areas telling voters polling places had changed or the election date was changed or changed if it rained. Some violence or threats were indicated.
The recent spate of GOP sponsored voter suppression laws and policies were efforts to get around the 1981 consent decree and have been successful to a large degree. Now individual lawsuits must again be filed in various state and federal courts to block voter suppression efforts.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:26 am
We have no voter fraud problem. Why all these laws that have been proven to hurt the poor and minority voters? Why? Why the push to fix a nonexistent problem?
Hmm….
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:26 am
By 2016 Republicans will want voter registration numbers to be in-graved on your for-arm ,,,at your own expense
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:28 am
Republicans efforts to woo the minority or women vote obviously won’t succeed. However it is most likely that the 2014 elections will be affected by Republicans efforts to stifle minority voters. But it will be a short bittersweet victory for the Republican Party and the Backlash will have a heavy cost. For 3 reasons.
In November after the elections a massive battleplan campaign will be started by Democrats that will have 2 years to get the minority voters ready and registered for the 2016 elections which will make 2008, 2012 seem pale by comparison. 2) You can’t overcome the math. Minority voting groups are exploding across America while Conservatives are losing a few percentage points of their base every cycle.
If you continue the war on Women and Minorities I can’t see any possible way for Republicans to reverse the trend. 3) After two years of Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader the country will be ready to crucify the Republican Party.
2016 is the beginning of the end for conservatism in America. The end of the Ted Cruz’s, John Boehner’s, Mitch McConnell’s Sarah Palin’s, Michele Bachman’s and Ted Bundy’s. Extremist Right Conservatism is headed towards extinction. They can delay it for a little while but it can’t be reversed or stopped.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:30 am
Voting is a right. Going in to see Erick Holder, buying a gun, buying liquor is a privilege. Why don’t Republicans understand that!
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:32 am
Thanks Kathy#11. A little humor is always needed or we’ll break down and cry with all the true damage really being done to our democracy by the modern day GOP party.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:34 am
Michelle, if you people really are so afraid of this, then you do have time. Get every single person you know of that does not have ID. And go get them ID. Drive them, bus them, do whatever it takes. As long as they are legal they should be able to get ID and then vote. problem solved.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:36 am
Minority voters across the nation if you for one second think that the Republican Party is your ally think again. It is so far from being your ally than one could even think it could be. They are the OPPOSITE of what your interests are and are a Trojan Horse luring you in but IF they should succeed (which they will NOT) you will be turned on as fast as a cat runs away from its enemy.
They will use you as they have used Clarence Thomas then turn him into a traitor to his own people. It is shameful. DO NOT BUY INTO ANYTHING Republcons have to say. They are NOT about you unless you occupy the 1% richest of the nation and few of us do! DO NOT BE FOOLED!!!!
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:38 am
The GOP doesn’t want blacks, Hispanics, or the poor to vote. They would be happy if this were 1814, and suffrage was restricted to white male landowners.
From the “Battlegrounf Dallas” meeting of the GOP in June of 2013:
“Question: “What are the Republicans doing to get black people to vote?”
Ken Emanuelson: “Well, I’m going to be real honest with you: The Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote, if they’re going to vote 9 to 1 for Democrats.”
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:38 am
One thing’s for sure – White Supremacists sure do get sore when anything’s done to UNsuppress – i.e., get out the Black vote despite the multifaceted efforts by Republicans to suppress it. They’re from the same stock as the old Southern Dixiecrats, who left the Democratic Party and went Republican after LBJ pushed Civil Rights 50 years ago.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:43 am
Name one thing the Republican Party has done for African Americans, the poor, students, women or any other minority in this Country.
The Democratic Party has it’s problems but at least when they are in power everyone has a fighting chance at the so call American Dream.
With Republicans it is “Personnel Responsibility” while they stand in the door way and keep anyone that does not look like them from coming in.
History has shown there are more millionaires created under Democrats.
Where as under Republicans the unemployment numbers always go up, the number of poor always increases and the number of people dependent on government help always goes up dramatically and stays that way until the voters wake and vote them out.
Then the Country spends the next 8 or more years clean up the mess the Republican created.
Rich people do not believe in sharing. They only believe in increasing their bank accounts any way they can by stepping on anyone that gets in their way and then blaming others for the mess they create.
Please do not start with the usual Republican rant about being jealous of the rich. Remember envy, lying and stealing is a sin and we all know your Republicans are really big “Christians”. Plus, you will look just as silly as when you start talking about patriotism.
We all know the only thing Republican are patriotic about is taking as much from the America People as they can. While you go behind close doors and laugh at them “for being so gullible.”
BTW, I am pretty sure it was not the Republicans that give the American People Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. You know those Safety Net Programs that you Republicans have vowed to privatize and given your friends more tax cuts with the American Peoples money. Nope, that was all the Democrats doing.
Just think where we would have been back in 2008 if Bush and the “Fiscally Responsible” Republicans had gotten their way and privatized Social Security and Medicare. We would have had an even worse Great Depression than the last one.
FYI, a Libertarian is just a Republican dressed up in a different suit while they still send out the same greed, hate and bigotry. Just ask the Pauls.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:45 am
White supremacists were never republican for one. and Republicans have always tried to enable blacks and minorities to be able to take care of themselves. Given the right to vote, education, desegregation, and on and on.
wake up before it is too late. I am a Libertarian not a republican but I think people need to wake up to a reality. The democrats have done nothing for minorities in a VERY long time. If they have ever done anything at all.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:46 am
If I see ONE more person with the word LIBERTY in their name. Uggggggghhhhhh. It’s always a Republican.
Republicans think they have a monopoly on LIBERTY. They have co-opted that word (along with FREEDOM and PROSPERITY). Liberty, Freedom and Prosperity have been reduced to propaganda words. It’s kind of sad.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:48 am
American conservatives have never wasted a lot of love on democracy. It’s clear why if you add up the propositions to which they are committed: 1) a person’s wealth is a good proxy for how morally worthy he/she is because 2) market outcomes are inherently just and 3) government intervention always makes market outcomes worse.
Next, take into account the fact that the market, as a system of distribution of scarce goods, works according to a principle of one dollar one vote whereas democracy works according to a principle of one person one vote. You can see where all the hostility to democracy comes from within this belief system: why would you be interested in governance by one person, one vote when this flouts the moral superiority of the rich and of the market in general?
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:49 am
The GOP had a choice to make. They could either persuade voters of the benefits of their proposed policies with facts and reasoned arguments, or they could gerrymander and suppress the vote. The choice has been made.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:50 am
“This weekend, the Supreme Court, by its customary 5-4 partisan split,”
Seems to me the 9-0 slapdowns Obama has received for exceeding his Constitutional authority – twenty by last count, have become more customary than the 5-4 decisions.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:53 am
@LisaLovesLiberty#24: Zombie talking points never die!
Factcheck.org reconfirms what everyone, including Lisa, already knew, that many of these cases were holdover from Bush, and that only one of the (at-time-of-posting 13) cases even touched on executive authority:
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:53 am
And here’s my proof. http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/obama-and-executive-overreach/
Hey, NYMag–how about if you’re caught using zombie talking points, there ought to be an automatic two-week’s worth of comment pre-moderation. Can we get this implemented?
LisaLovesLiberty, any time you want to apologize, be our guest.
=====================
Where’s yours?
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:56 am
LisaLovesLiberty#24, “LIberty” serves the same purpose to conservatives as “People’s” does to communists. Evidence of duplicity
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:58 am
Gwen#25&26, Twenty – count ‘em sweetpea. Read it and weep.
Any rime you want to apologize for voting for this clown, be my guest.
October 23rd, 2014 at 9:02 am
[…] Paula: Speaking of wooing women and OTWs, here’s an excellent write that I found: […]