CA & early voting?

[loveangelc]

is it 50% or 25%, I've seen conflicting info.

At times I think it will help Hillary a great deal, then I remembered that Guiliani depended on that and it didn't really matter too much for him overall...
out of curiosity, how large is the % of early/absentee voting in ca and will the number be big enough to make any significant difference?

[Quixote1818]

1. Are you listening to Randi Rhodes right now?

They are playing an earlier show about early voting which caused me to get back on my computer and check this out too.

[loveangelc]

2. no, I dont know who that is lol.

[NMMNG]

3. About 50%

Some 4 million permanent absentee voters.

http://cbs5.com/local/California.absentee.voting.2.625107.html

Whether it will affect the results or not....:shrug:.

[The Delegates]

5. ...

"Twenty years ago it was somewhere around 6 to 9 percent, and in the last election cycle the number of total votes cast by absentee voters was over 40 percent. We wouldn't be surprised if it approached 50 percent," said Bill Simon, the chair of Rudy Giuliani's campaign in California. "That's a very significant number obviously, so efforts to get to absentee voters are very important."

...

Reading comprehension, FTW.

[NMMNG]

7. I have it. Do you?

Twenty years ago it was somewhere around 6 to 9 percent, and in the last election cycle the number of total votes cast by absentee voters was over 40 percent. We wouldn't be surprised if it approached 50 percent," said Bill Simon, the chair of Rudy Giuliani's campaign in California. "That's a very significant number obviously, so efforts to get to absentee voters are very important.

I said "about 50%". A number between Over 40 and approaching 50 qualifies as "about 50".

[CreekDog]

4. 22% of votes were early, however, that's overall voters not just dems

Early votes tend to be conservatives and Republicans, so probably 11% or less votes were Dems, although decline to state voters could mean that the percentage of early voters voting in the Dem primary is higher than 11%.

By the way, me and most of my family are early voters. i voted Obama. most of the guys i know are voting obama.

[Sapphocrat]

6. Forty-something percent, depending on county.

I believe it's 46% where I am, but I'm just too lazy to go look up the numbers. (Why such a large percentage? Because we can -- and because smart voters don't trust e-voting machines.)

The local analysts generally believe it will help Hillary, as so many of us already voted a week or more ago, before the Obama rallies got going in California -- and the local ABC News station tonight mentioned that while the polls are indeed all over the place, they don't take absentee ballots into account.

That said, it's all a big :shrug: and pointless to speculate at this stage of the game. Should Hillary take California, I will open a bottle of champagne and drink it. Should Obama take California, I will open a bottle of champagne, drink it, and then bludgeon myself into unconsciousness with it. (You're welcome.)

[Kahuna]

8. When you consider the demographics that each candidate attracts..

I think it would be more likely that Obama would do better with the early voters.

[Peace Patriot]

9. 50% Absentee Ballot (Mail-in) in CA; 20% in Los Angeles, but...

the other kind of early voting--using touchscreen machines at places like shopping malls--has been significantly reduced, due to the new reforming Sec of State's (Debra Bowen's) rule requiring a 100% audit of touchscreens. (Some county election officials favor non-transparency, like the their corporate vendors.)

See my "California Election Integrity Assessment 2008, which I just re-posted at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4380748

Almost everything you need to know to analyze the CA results Feb 5-6. I have a whole section on the parlous business of AB voting.

But, sorry, I don't have the latest stats on voting at the touchscreen stations. It is likely VERY reduced--from previous or expected use. In L.A., they were going to deploy many early voting (Diebold touchscreen) stations, but got hit up side the head by Bowen's rules, and now it's only available at the main county election office in Norwalk and the Braille Institute. It was one of (Diebold shill) Conny McCormack's pet corporate projects (former head of L.A. elections who resigned (with head wounds) in Dec 07). She was no doubt miffed at not being able to 'deliver" for Diebold (among other things).

The early voting stations was a corporate scam to sell MORE highly expensive (and highly riggable) voting machines to us poor taxpaying suckers, and to reduce the use of the slightly less riggable optiscans--which are used to scan all AB votes. The AB votes are NOT counted; they are scanned into a riggable electronic tabulation system. AB voters may be under the illusion that AB votes are handcounted, and thus more secure than other kinds of voting. But they are no more secure than an optiscan vote (not very), and a little more secure than a touchscreen vote. The corporate vendors don't give a crap about security. They want to sell billions of dollars worth of unnecessary machinery, and wield the power of their "trade secret" code, without a lot of fuss and bother, like ballot-counting and public oversight.

Ah, me! It's quite a tale. But one thing I want to urge on you all: PLEASE DON'T ADD TO THE CORPORATE 'HYSTERIA' BEING CREATED IN THE MEDIA ABOUT CALIFORNIA'S VOTE TALLY BEING DELAYED BY SOS BOWEN'S REFORMS. Urge patience! Corporate shill county election officials may try to stir up this charge--ARE trying to. (See the Assessment.) Resist the corporate pressure for instant results. That pressure favors non-transparent, easily riggable electronic voting.

[Nimrod2005]

10. Closer to 25%, Obama is leading by 1%

[angie_love]

11. What do you mean Obama is leading by 1%? Is this among absentees?

[my3boyz]

12. No..

I think that poster is referring to a poll that people said included a percentage of early voters. We have no way of knowing if they estimated the percentage correct or not.

[loveangelc]

13. I'm bumping this because people are saying two different things...

[NoBorders]

14. The reliable CA Field poll showed

Absentee ballots actually favored Obama 31%5 to 30%, but I can't find a link to it right now. It was front-paged on dKos a little while ago.