This is to be expected. In Florida, the older voters get in their votes early. John Kerry won the election day voting in 2004, but got creamed in early voting. Obama's holding strong so far, but Florida was always a difficult state for him, and any Democrat for that matter. Also, remember, Florida is in that Southern contingency where polls underestimated his performance by about 8 points during the primaries.
But he already has at least one house in Arizona. Both states have excellent early bird specials and dinner theatre.
I really disagree with taking polls from people who actually voted early. They should be off limits until the polls close.
I'm sure they are, but mostly don't they vote by mail if they're stationed abroad? When it comes to Florida, the guy to listen to is Joe Scarborough on MSNBC. He was formerly a Republican Congressman from the Panhandle, but seems to have a better grasp of the political dynamics of the state than even current Representatives like Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Robert Wexler, who focus mostly on Southern Florida.
Military members do vote early and the ballot is mailed to their state of record. When I was in the military, I know those ballots were counted and only tallied if the race result was closer that the number of ballots counted. Then they would actually open the ballots and count them for any race(s) needed for.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/30/news/ML-Israel-McCain.php Survey: shows McCain beating Obama in Israel The Associated Press Thursday, October 30, 2008 JERUSALEM: An Israeli pollster says that if the country were on the U.S. election map, it would be bright red. A survey of Americans in the Holy Land released Thursday found that absentee voters supported Republican John McCain over Barack Obama by a three-to-one margin. The survey interviewed 817 Americans who have cast absentee ballots for next week's presidential election. It was conducted by Vote from Israel, a nonpartisan group that has encouraged Americans to vote. An estimated 40,000 Americans living in Israel are expected to vote. Pollster Mitchell Barak said there is no formal list of American citizens living in Israel, so it's extremely difficult to find a random sample of voters. Nonetheless, he said his survey was a good indicator on how people are voting this year. He said roughly a quarter of American voters in Israel cast their ballots through the Vote from Israel group. Barak said most Americans in Israel are observant Jews who tend to have conservative social views and hawkish attitudes toward the Mideast peace process. Such voters are drawn to McCain, he said. In contrast, most Jews in the United States are not religious and tend to support Democrats.
My take is that early exit poll results negatively affects the voting process. In 2000, when the networks called Florida for Gore, the polls in the Republican leaning northwestern part of the state were still open. If you lived there and intended to vote for Bush, you might have blown it off since there'd be no point after the state was declared for Gore.
Another poll (maybe someone can find a link to it) found that only 2 countries abroad supported McCain. One was Georgia...and I'm not sure what the other was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Israel.
remember also that they used to report exit polls throughout election day. In 2000, I think they waited until 8:00 or so, but some counties were open for another half hour or hour. It's better this way.
Thank you! This is a perfect example of the idiocy of leftism. Always looking to attack anyone who would threaten their ideology, without even using common sense. MARIS61, what has happened to you? You used to make sense some of the time on the other board, but I find your posts these days are just ludicrous. You on drugs, my friend? What's up?
No surprise there. Most of the world would love to see the U.S. weakened and diminished, and Obama promises to do that.
