Here are the latest numbers out of Iowa and Ohio.
IOWA
Here are the latest numbers for absentee ballot requests:
Dems 181,026 (48.12%)
Reps 111,877 (29.74%)
Inds 82,967 (22.05%)
Oth 330 (negligible)
TOTAL 376,200
Here are the new ballot requests since the last report:
Dems +6,708
Reps +8,706
Inds +5,546
These numbers are up sharply again but the increase in Democratic ballot requests was much higher than the increase in Republican ones.
Here are the latest numbers for total ballots returned:
Dems 101,613 (54.48%)
Reps 50,032 (26.83%)
Inds 34,729 (18.62%)
Oth 129 (negligible)
TOTAL 186,503
Here are the returned ballots since the last report:
Dems +11,736
Reps +10,903
Inds +5,589
It was another huge day for voting yesterday. Roughly 28,000 ballots were received either by mail or via early voting, which is about 8,000 more than the previous day. Democrats still outpace Republicans in ballots cast, but the Republicans are edging closer in the daily count.
Here is a link to the Iowa numbers: http://sos.iowa.gov/...
OHIO
Here are the latest numbers out of Ohio. Now you have to remember a couple of things when looking at these numbers. First of all, there is no party registration in Ohio. So when you go to vote, they hand you a ballot based on what primary you voted in last. There was no contested Democratic primary this year and quite a few Democrats voted in the Republican primary.
Also, if you didn't vote in a primary this year, you get handed an Independent ballot, which explains why such a huge number of ballot requests are from so-called independents. On top of that, weekend voting hasn't kicked in yet, which would also explain why Democratic ballots are lagging a bit from the 2008 numbers.
Additionally, the Elections Division mailed out absentee ballot requests to all registered voters this year, which would explain the sharp increase in absentee ballots requested over this juncture in 2008.
Democratic ballot requests: 260,657 (30.06%)
Republican ballot requests: 203,157 (23.43%)
Ind/Oth ballot requests: 403,247 (46.51%)
Total ballot requests: 867,061
Here is a link to the early voting numbers out of Ohio:
https://docs.google.com/...
One more caveat is that these numbers are incomplete because not all counties report these kinds of statistics and of the ones that do, some of them only report every few days. So take these with a grain of salt. To me, given all these preconditions, these numbers look pretty damn good.
Now according to the Survey USA poll that has Obama leading Romney by a single point, 45% to 44%, Obama leads in the early voting 59% to 39%. That is most welcome news.
Here is a link to that poll: http://www.surveyusa.com/...
So as you can see, we still have a lot of things to be happy about. However, I sure wish Obama would hold another rally in Iowa to re-energize the early voting effort there. I think it would help a lot.