In 2004, about 5,628,000 voters in Ohio cast ballots for President. In 2008, with a huge GOTV effort and a push to register hundreds of thousands new voters, that tally has reached 5,296,000 with 100% of precincts reporting.
More than 300,000 votes less than in 2004. We can look at specific counties.
Vote tallies of the combined top candidates:
Montgomery County (Dayton) ~ 281,000 in 2004 and 259,000 in 2008.
Hamilton County (Cincinnati) ~ 423,000 in 2004 and 397,000 in 2008.
Franklin County (Columbus) ~ 523,000 in 2004 and 511,000 in 2008.
In Cleveland, over 30,000 fewer votes in 2008.
In Toledo, fewer votes in 2008.
And on and on.
So, the question: are there still a ton of votes out there waiting to be counted (early votes?). I've heard that early votes are processed like absentee votes. This would certainly push Obama's lead a few percentage points in the state.
Or is this the result of depopulation in Ohio and these metro centers just populate fewer people than 4 years ago? I would believe that in the case of Cinci and Cleveland, but not Columbus. Franklin County is still growing.
It's not that I care if Obama wins by 4% or 5% in Ohio. It's that votes are not being counted (presumably) in Ohio, Georgia, and Alaska. Maybe more states, I don't know. Is this a result of early voting actually disenfranchising voters? That would be awful to discover that the Obama's big push to drive young and AA voters to the polls early was actually used against him by discounting those votes.
If anybody has any answers, that's be great.
(BTW: I was using the NYTimes election map to tabulate my numbers)