The Republican Party of Florida has been touting early voting results in Florida (early voting started on Monday, absentee ballots have been coming back in for a couple of weeks now) as an indication of the "voter enthusiasm gap" strength in Florida.
Unfortunately, most of their comparisons are apples to oranges...comparing returns so far this year to the general election results of 2008.
Here's a link to one of the stories:
Three Days of Early Voting In Florida
Follow me below for what I think are some better numbers that, while of concern, aren't the apocalyptic numbers being thrown about by the RPOF.
The Florida Division of Elections makes detailed absentee and early voting numbers available to parties, candidates and political committees in Florida. This is the source for reporting ballots being returned by the voter's party. Unfortunately, this system and similar data is not readily available for the 2006 general election, which most reputable sources will say is a better source for comparison than the 2008 general election numbers.
To that end, I have analyzed the votes cast by early voting and by mail in the 2006 election and pulled the party of the voter from the voter registration files. This doesn't allow for a comparison of votes cast to date to the same period in 2006, but I think the overall party splits is still a better comparison than using the 2008 results.
In summary, Democrats are actually doing slightly better in absentee ballots returned so far when compared to the ballots cast in 2006. Early voting to date, however, has shown a definite Republican advantage when compared to all early votes cast in 2006.
Whether or not these changes are merely reflections of changes in how people are voting in Florida is impossible to predict. One consideration for changes in early voting patterns in Florida is that because of budget constrictions many counties, especially larger counties, have reduced the number of early voting sites this cycle. In addition, the legislature changed early voting dates for 2010, no longer allowing early voting on Sunday.
Here are the votes cast by party for 2006 and up to and including yesterday for 2010. As always, the voter's party of registration should not be construed as being the party they actually voted for.
***Quick update*** The chart in the lower left corner should have the title "Early Voting 2006 (all)" although most of you probably figured that out!