Early vote update: NC Democrats Banking a Lot of Votes (WAPO)

[marions ghost]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/29/early-vote-update-north-carolina-democrats-are-banking-a-lot-of-votes/

By Philip Bump October 29 at 4:08 PM

Over the course of the past two weeks, we've attempted to shine some light on the evolution of early voting across the country by comparing turnout percentages to voter registration totals. In some states, like North Carolina, Democrats have banked a large number of votes. In others, like Florida, the data seems to look better for Republicans.

The data comes from the U.S. Election Project. It's imperfect as a predictor, for reasons nicely outlined by the project's Michael McDonald, and which we summarized last week. Registration doesn't equal expected turnout, and variations in how turnout works in each state mean that we're comparing early voter apples with mail-in voter oranges. Nor do early vote counts necessarily mirror final election results.

That said, here's how the data looks. As of the the Election Project's latest update, 11.6 million Americans have voted. Where the numbers are broken down by party (or, in the case of Georgia, race) we plotted them against registration. The smaller dots on the line show past data updates. Some states were added later than others, or weren't updated as regularly.

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North Carolina offers good news for Democrats. They lead in the early vote and have more of the voter registration. Plus, the race between Sen. Kay Hagan (D) and Thom Tillis (R) has been tightening. If by Election Day Tillis has a steady lead in the polls, it will be worth remembering that a lot of the vote -- nearly 600,000 so far -- was already in the bank, and almost certainly favoring Hagan.

[boomer55]

1. It only matters who counts the votes....

[marions ghost]

2. You have a point

...unfortunately.

Until we get a better election system--more transparent, more fair, more honest--our votes are even more important to make it harder for them to cheat with the same ease they have had in the past.

We have to make election reform a priority. Obviously there's a lot of corruption.