Fueled by blacks and Hispanics, registered Ds now lead Rs by 536k in FL

Florida released its final voter-roll tally for the 2012 election and it has a sliver of good news for the Republican Party: It’s down by just 535,987 registered voters compared to the Democratic Party. In 2008, it was down 657,775.

Otherwise, compared to the rest of the state, the Republican Party is looking less and less like Florida, which is becoming blacker and browner. But the GOP got whiter since 2008 by 4 percent, while the state’s white voter population increased just 2 percent overall.

Overall, since 2008, Hispanics have grown 22 percent on the voter rolls. But GOP Hispanics increased just 9 percent while the Democrats’ Hispanics increased 26 percent.

An increasing proportion of Hispanics preferred neither party, increasing the No Party Affiliation ranks by nearly 36 percent. Now number more than 513,000, outnumbering Republican Hispanics by nearly 37,000. There are still more registered Democratic Hispanics at nearly 645,000.

Black voters overall grew by 10 percent in Florida, but decreased by 5 percent for the GOP and grew 9 percent for the Democrats.

As early vote-day dawns, 1.2m Floridians have voted by absentee ballot. GOP 5-point lead won't last long

The first day of in-person early voting, which Democrats typically dominate, began this morning with long lines and lots of enthusiasm (story here). The weather was also perfect in South Florida, a boon to President Obama, who needs a large turnout in the liberal stronghold to counteract GOP gains in absentee ballots, which have been mailed in (background on what it all means is here).

Right now, the GOP leads by about 5 percentage points. Around this time in 2008, Republicans led by more than 15 points. But then early in-person voting happened, and Democrats ran up a huge pre-Election Day lead.

But as of this morning, the GOP was still out front in voted ballots:

Party	Voted	%
REP	545,282	44%
DEM	482,742	39%
IND	200,493	16%
Total	1,228,517	Rich Text

Here are the outstanding requests (Note: If Democrats could get all their requesters to vote their absentee ballots, they'd be down by about 1.3 points):

Party	Requests	%
REP	548,317	38%
DEM	576,660	40%
IND	303,242	21%
Total	1,428,219

And here are the top 15 AB hotspots. Pinellas County, less than half the size of the largest county, Miami-Dade, is nevertheless No. 1 (Note: R/D=Republican-Democrat):

County	Total	REP	DEM	R/D
PIN	133,171	55,187	52,237	2,950
DAD	109,638	48,477	41,797	6,680
HIL	85,096	33,303	36,639	(3,336)
ORA	65,446	25,436	28,971	(3,535)
BRO	61,336	17,757	33,768	(16,011)
BRE	51,693	25,508	18,541	6,967
SAR	49,975	22,462	19,066	3,396
LEE	48,202	24,645	14,464	10,181
POL	40,851	17,566	17,326	240
VOL	38,271	16,819	14,732	2,087
PAS	36,265	15,406	14,117	1,289
PAL	34,385	10,598	17,883	(7,285)
CLL	32,233	19,493	7,066	12,427
DUV	30,495	15,358	11,221	4,137
MAN	27,670	13,585	9,533	4,052

From voting history to race, an analysis of the 1.1m absentee voters on early vote eve

More than 1.1 million Floridians have already voted by absentee ballot in the past month, which amounts to regular-season play in the contact sport of Florida politics.

The GOP is the top seed, edging Democrats by 5 percentage points in casting absentee ballots, which are typically mailed in.

But the playoffs start Saturday with in-person early voting. And that’s when Democrats — already narrowing the absentee-ballot gap with Republicans — typically excel.

"We are going to keep Florida blue," Ashley Walker, President Obama’s Florida director, boasted Friday in a conference call where the campaign touted facts and figures showing its strong organization.

However, the Obama campaign’s successful push to bank absentee ballots could cost it some bragging rights when it comes to showing big gains during the in-person early voting period that runs from Saturday to Nov. 3.

This year, about 38 percent of the absentee ballots cast by Democrats have come from those who voted early or voted on Election Day in 2008, according to an analysis of voting records by The Miami Herald and the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting.

That means Democrats could post relatively fewer early-voting increases over Republicans compared to 2008, when Democrats cast 500,000 more in-person early votes while the GOP cast about 250,000 more absentee ballots.

In all, about 9 million Floridians are expected to vote in this year’s presidential race, with about 40 percent casting ballots before Election Day, Nov. 6.

Republicans say Democrats have “cannibalized” their early voters this time.

But the Obama campaign dismisses that as “spin” and says it’s focused on getting its core voters out while trying to entice occasional or sporadic voters — who tend to back Obama — to show up at the polls.

Also, it’s not as if Republicans haven’t eaten into some of their regular voters, either. About 29 percent of the absentee ballots cast by Republicans this year came from those who voted early or on Election Day in 2008, The Miami Herald and FCIR analysis shows.....

Only 8 percent of the absentee ballots cast so far have been from African-Americans, and just 9 percent from Hispanics. About 65 percent of those Hispanics are from Southeast Florida – a majority of whom are Cuban Republicans – followed by more liberal leaning Hispanics in Central Florida (15 %) and Tampa Bay (12%).

 A whopping 79 percent of the absentee-ballot voters are white non-Hispanic.....

More here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/26/3069344/more-than-11-million-floridians.html#storylink=cpy

1.1m Floridians have voted; GOP leads by 5 but Obama team says 'we are going to keep FL blue.'

The absentee votes are still pouring in and the Florida GOP still holds an edge of about 5 percentage points in voted ballots.

But the Obama campaign points out that it's cut cut the GOP lead by about two-thirds since 2008 and that, with the advent of early in-person votinng tomorrow, the Republicans can kiss their lead goodbye. More importantly, the Obama campaign says, is to look at the difference between total absentee-ballot requests (those that have been voted plus those still outstanding). By that measure, the Democrats trail by just 1 percentage point, as opposed to about 11 percentage points relative to this time in 2008.

"We are going to keep Florida blue," said Ashley Walker, the Obama campaign's Florida director. She says the campaign has the knowledge, organization and ability to contact those Democrats who haven't cast ballots yet to make sure they do. Team Obama is also working on some of the independent voters as well (but so is Mitt Romney's team's).

Voted ballots

Party	Total	%
REP	504,940	45%
DEM	445,862	39%
IND	183,527	16%
Total	1,134,329

Outstanding requests:

Party	Total	%
REP	575,069	39%
DEM	600,629	40%
IND	312,058	21%
Total	1,487,756

Here are the top 15 AB hotspot counties. Note the gangbusters numbers out of Pinellas (which we explored yesterday when we also noted the voter-registration gap Republicans are closing. Not: R/D=Republican-Democrat in the last column:

Total	Total	REP	DEM	R/D
PIN	123,467	51,142	48,562	2,580
DAD	100,376	44,670	38,058	6,612
HIL	79,020	31,052	34,011	(2,959)
BRO	58,028	16,824	31,964	(15,140)
ORA	56,679	21,995	25,316	(3,321)
BRE	47,556	23,476	17,089	6,387
SAR	46,186	20,705	17,812	2,893
LEE	43,155	22,041	12,986	9,055
POL	38,209	16,377	16,293	84
VOL	36,059	15,984	13,804	2,180
PAS	34,124	14,498	13,318	1,180
DUV	30,495	15,358	11,221	4,137
CLL	30,280	18,324	6,651	11,673
PAL	29,449	9,274	15,186	(5,912)
SEM	25,806	13,369	8,286	5,083

Another presidential race, another Palm Beach County recount

It's a ballot recount in a tight presidential race that invites easy comparisons to the electoral crisis of 2000.

About 27,000 absentee ballots can't be digitally scanned because of a recently discovered design flaw. Elections workers began Monday duplicating the markings from bad ballots to new ones so that the votes could be recorded, an effort that has led some to question the accuracy of results.

And it's all happening in Palm Beach County.

"By now, questions can be asked about why these type of problems keep happening in this one county," said Ed Foley, an Ohio Sate University law professor and expert on election law.

But Foley and other elections experts say that unlike the butterfly ballot and hanging chads of the infamous Bush-Gore voting 12 years ago, this year's mishap with Palm Beach absentee ballots probably won't sway an entire national election.

"There are no perfect elections and glitches happen," Foley said. "In this case, they caught it in time and set up a pretty good review process that's transparent and is probably the best one possible."

More than 1 million Floridians have already voted; GOP still has 5-point edge

The absentee-ballot numbers are in and Florida has officially passed the 1 million absentee-vote mark. The GOP leads by 5 points. But Democrats can do some bragging, too. Around this time in 2008, they trailed Republicans by about 16 percentage points in voted absentee ballots. That lead has been cut by two-thirds.

Still, it's a lead by Republicans. And they've closed the gap when it comes to total voter registrations (see below)

Add in the outstanding requests, and Democrats boast that they cut the GOP's 11 point lead to about 1 percentage point when it comes to total absentee ballots requested at this point (that is, voted and outstanding ballots.

Voted ballots:

Party	Voted	%
REP	468,417	45%
DEM	414,343	39%
IND	169,338	16%
Total	1,052,098

Outstanding requests

Party	Requested	%
REP	598,372	39%
DEM	618,224	40%
IND	317,325	21%
Total	1,533,921

Before noting the top 15 AB-voting hotspots, it special attention needs to be drawn to Pinellas County, in which about 18 percent of its 620,000 active voters have already cast ballots. Pinellas, home to St. Petersburg, is 48 percent of Miami-Dade's voting-population size but has cast 23 percent more ballots (21,000) than Florida's largest county

Another type of political forecasting: real weather forecasting for Hurricane Sandy

President Obama needs a huge early voting turnout in Florida on Saturday, when in-person early voting begins. This will mark the only weekend for early voting in Florida, where Democrats typically dominate at the polls.

Black ministers are gearing up for what they call "Operation Lemonade" to juice up the African-American vote, especially in South Florida. It's a critical component to Obama's election hopes.

Republicans, as usual, are doing well at voting by absentee ballots, which are typically mailed in. They're leading Democrats by just over 5 percentage points as of this morning (blog here).

But this weekend also marks the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, which could be a tropical storm by the time it clears through Jamaica and Cuba by 8 a.m. Thursday. On the current track, Sandy doesn't look like a major threat to Florida. The storm is supposed to bend to the northeast, away from the state. So it could be a beautiful weekend in Florida, and a great one for President Obama.

However, if Sandy bends west, slows down and dumps rain across Florida, that's bad news for President Obama and good tidings for the Republicans. Sandy is big and sloppy, so Florida's due for some rain. But the question is: When and where?

On a side, but related note, the absentee-voting gap-closing by Democrats has been noteworthy. In 2008, Democrats trailed absentee voting at this time by about 16 points. Now it's about 5.

But Republicans have closed another type of gap: Voter registrations.

In 2008, when Obama won Florida by 236,450 votes over John McCain, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 657,775, or 36-42% (5.8 percentage points).

In 2012, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 501,443, or 36-40% (a 4.3 percentage-point lead).

Democrats have complained that the Republican-led Legislature dampened voter registration drives through an onerous crackdown, which has since been lifted by the courts. However, Democrats lost most of their voters before that law was passed.

Also, the Obama campaign has registered about 322,000 new voters and it's better organized than it was in 2008. So count that in the plus column for the Democrats.

Yet, relative to 2008, Republican Mitt Romney is in a much better position than McCain in Florida. So Republicans have an edge there.

Florida closing in on 1 million absentee votes; 10% of electorate has voted; GOP up 5%

About 1 million Floridians will have cast absentee ballots in the nation's biggest battleground state by day's end based on current trends.

As of this morning, 925,000 people have already voted. That's about 10 percent -- if note more -- of the likely Florida electorate of about 9 million voters.

Republicans are hanging on to their lead in absentee ballots cast. But they're not as far ahead as they used to be. Republicans are ahead by 5.4 percentage points (note: it looks like 6% in the numbers below due to rounding). But that's down compared to this point in 2008, when their cast ballots were 16 points higher than Democratic absentee ballots cast, according to Democrats.**

Still, it's a GOP lead. Expect that to change when in-person early voting, which Democrats dominate, begins Saturday Oct. 27.

Voted ballots:

Party	Voted	%
REP	414,016	45%
DEM	363,881	39%
IND	147,707	16%
Total	925,604

Outstanding requests:

Party	Requested	%
REP	634,580	39%
DEM	648,824	40%
IND	326,680	20%
Total	1,610,084

Top 15 AB-voting hotspots, which account for 68 percent of the ballots cast (R/D=Republican-Democrat):

County	Total	REP	DEM	R/D
PIN	101,737	42,094	40,181	1,913
DAD	73,472	32,963	27,846	5,117
HIL	63,559	25,200	27,262	(2,062)
ORA	51,309	20,061	22,867	(2,806)
BRO	46,816	13,759	25,699	(11,940)
SAR	40,881	18,404	15,906	2,498
LEE	33,689	17,431	9,985	7,446
BRE	33,162	16,291	11,960	4,331
POL	31,919	13,641	13,684	(43)
PAS	29,073	12,356	11,440	916
VOL	28,830	12,996	10,852	2,144
DUV	26,280	13,250	9,658	3,592
CLL	26,226	15,969	5,716	10,253
MRN	22,181	10,644	8,570	2,074
SEM	21,302	11,068	6,812	4,256

 **One of the reasons Democrats are doing better with absentee ballots is that they have to because the GOP-controlled Legislature cut back on in-person early voting hours relative to 2008, when Democrats swamped the polls during a cumulative 120 hours of early voting over 14 days. Now, the days are limited to eight and the hours to 96 (note: the hours were always capped at 96 total, but then Gov. Charlie Crist issued an executive order that kept the early voting polls open longer).

We last explored this in an article when the vote hit the half-million mark

Union-backed poll of FL: Obama-Romney tied, but prez could lead by 5 with early voters

Americans United for Change, a union-backed group, released a one-page memo from a Mellman Group poll of Florida voters showing the race dead even in Florida: President Obama and Mitt Romney are tied 47-47.

"Our just completed survey shows that the presidential race in the Sunshine State will be yet another nail-biter, but President Obama has some key advantages over Romney beneath the surface," the memo said.

The most intriguing aspect of the poll: Obama might lead Romney 50-45 percent among voters who already cast ballots; about 5 percent refused to say for whom they voted. As today, that number of absentee-ballot voters is 830,000 in Florida. When the poll was taken (Oct. 18-21) the number of absentee voters was about 750,000.

Caveat: we don't know if the numbers are good because there are no crosstabs and it's not clear how many respondents were Republicans, Democrats and independents there are. Still, Democrats are holding their own with absentee ballots cast and they typically dominate in-person early voting, set to begin Saturday. Obama and Romney will be in the state around that time to turn out the early vote.

Here's more from the memo:

The President leads registered independents 49%-44% (7% undecided), and self-described moderates by a larger 59% to 29% margin. Our results also suggest Obama holds an image advantage among the undecided—with 41% holding a favorable and 37% unfavorable. However undecideds harbor quite negative views of Governor Romney, with just 25% favorable and a 51% majority offering an unfavorable opinion of the GOP challenger.

The President holds sizeable leads among several key groups, including women (51%-45%), younger (under 50) voters (51% to 40%), Hispanics (60%-39%), and African-Americans (90%-7%).

With a strong and disciplined get-out-the vote effort, President Obama has a strong chance to repeat his 2008 win in Florida.

Florida Republicans targeted in dirty-tricks vote campaign

The Florida Division of elections and state law enforcement officials are investigating "multiple" bogus letters sent to Florida voters to inform them that they have been flagged as suspected illegal, non-citizen voters.

"I sat there and actually had to read it a couple times because I didn't understand what it said at first," Republican Charles Callaghan of Ponte Vedra recounted to Buzz about the letter he opened Saturday. It claimed to be from the St. Johns County elections supervisor, informing him that elections officials had been informed he may be ineligible to vote and "registering to vote under fraudulent conditions or swearing a false oath are both third degree felonies in Florida."

It's an interesting twist on Florida's noncitizen voter purge, which was led by Republican Rick Scott, and was more of a threat to Democrats and independents. But now some outside group is trying to use the GOP-led effort against the GOP.

"We've received multiple reports of a fraudulent letter that impersonates supervisors of elections and indicates that eligible voters might be ineligible," said Chris Cate, spokesman for the Division of Elections. "We're working with the state's supervisors of elections as well law enforcement to identify the source of the letters and put a stop to them."

Cate said anyone receiving such a letter should contact their local elections office.

The postmark was from Seatttle Washington, as were other similar letters received across Florida.

The letters appear to be going mostly or entirely to Republicans in Florida.

“Our campaign is concerned with this situation and we are monitoring it closely," said Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams. "If anybody believes that they have received one of these letters, we urge them to contact their local election officials and the Florida Department of State.”

Posted by Adam C. Smith