Six days before the general election, the number of early ballots already returned in Iowa now exceeds the total early votes cast in any previous midterm election, the Secretary of State’s office announced today.
As of this morning, 355,192 Iowans have requested an absentee ballot and of those ballots, 254,836 have been received back by auditors’ offices.
In the 2006 General Election, 242,385 Iowans voted absentee. Four years prior in the 2002 General Election, 242,357 voted absentee.
Among Iowans who have requested absentee ballots, 158,286 (44.6%) are registered Democrats, 129,316 (36.4%) are Republicans, 67,288 (18.9%) are no-party voters and 302 have some other registration. Those whose ballots have already been returned to county auditors include 114,193 Democrats (44.8%), 97,398 Republicans (38.2%), 43,037 no-party voters (16.9%) and 208 voters with a different registration.
The total number of Iowa votes cast in the 2006 general election was 1,044,459.
Both parties have improved their early voting programs, especially the Iowa GOP, which didn’t have much going on this front in past midterms. On election night we’ll find out which party had more success banking early votes in the battleground state legislative districts.
From the numbers released today, it’s not clear whether most of the early votes came from Iowans who would have turned out anyway on November 2. Although everyone’s vote counts the same, an absentee ballot returned by someone who normally votes only in presidential years is more valuable than an absentee ballot returned by someone who never misses an election.
There’s still time for Iowans to vote early. I posted three ways to do so here.
13 Comments
My question about early voting
I like how you said:
Although the numbers look nice, many fail to look at these strategically. We need to see how many people have cast ballots whose voting history has no predictable pattern. If these numbers are just full of people who have a high propensity to vote, then their vote isn’t as valuable strategically because we already knew they were going to vote.
So the real question is, “Whose early-vote program is more sophisticated?” Although the Republican Party has improved from years past, one must question their level of sophistication.
I’m hesitant to accept that the early-vote numbers are an indication of overall turnout. I’m hesitant because, correct me if I’m wrong, academic research (something party officials frequently ignore because they don’t know how to interpret a regression to save their lives) indicates that the availability of absentee ballots does not increase voter turnout (not statistically significant), rather it reduces the cost for voters (rational-choice theory). If this is true, then the increase of people using absentee ballots just means that more people are trying to reduce their costs and the overall turnout will not be higher than normal.
The reason I bring this up is because unless we get the hard numbers of vote history and whether or not the citizen voted absentee, we won’t be able to gauge the value of these absentee votes. I don’t think we can base it off of trends and be confident. We could answer these questions easily, but both parties need to give an academic access. In my mind (according to my limited knowledge), too many variables exist to answer the sophistication of each party’s early vote program based on trends and who wins the elections.
thomasjschultz Wed 27 Oct 2:54 PM
That was a stupid comment
Now that I think about it, we wouldn’t need any help from either party to get a basic idea. A person could do this on their own. I wasn’t thinking this through. However, the party’s information on who they tried to contact and how many times they were touched would provide additional information that would lead to more in-depth analysis.
Again, that is unlikely because neither party’s leaders (state and federal) care about research. That was one strength of Ken Mehlman. He loved experimental research.
thomasjschultz Wed 27 Oct 4:53 PM
I bet the parties are keeping track of this
but I don’t think they would make that information public during the campaign.
I know some Democrats who have been knocking on doors of “sporadic” voters (people who voted in 2008 but not 2006), trying to get absentee ballot request forms. Some research had to go into drawing up those canvassing lists for volunteers.
desmoinesdem Wed 27 Oct 5:18 PM
Agreed, they are keeping track of this
Obviously nothing would ever be made available to anyone during a campaign. But an academic could take individual level data made available to them after the election and do some crazy stuff with it that the parties probably aren’t doing, if he or she were given access.
The part that interests me most is not so much the aggregate data. I can put that together tonight if I wanted to. The part that I’m interested in is the type of contact and the number of times each type of contact was made. I would like to see if there is a correlation between these variables and which “sporadic” voters actually voted. In my opinion, it would be beneficial for democracy as a whole.
thomasjschultz Wed 27 Oct 6:48 PM
Narcisse wave?
Maybe this means that the Narcisse campaign is correct in predicting they can win the race? Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Narcisse does have some good ideas on education reform and DHS reform. I have to take a dig at him given that I like so close to a prison and a casino.
moderateiadem Wed 27 Oct 3:12 PM
I hate to admit it
but Krusty actually had a funny post about Narcisse’s campaign, based on the his latest disclosure form for expenditures.
desmoinesdem Wed 27 Oct 5:59 PM
It's the NPs
I just now ran a comparison of current absentee requesters with their past voting turnout in a modest-sized Republican county in north Iowa. I found that two thirds of the requesting Democrats and also two thirds of the requesting Republicans had voted in both 2002 and 2006. I’ll bet they voted in 2004 and 2008 as well. These are the reliable voters.
But the NPs were a different story. Only 40% of them had voted in both off-year elections.
No one sends ABR forms to NPs. They have to act on their own. They appear to be acting at a higher rate than in the past in that county.
iowavoter Wed 27 Oct 3:50 PM
I wonder who that helps
Some Democratic candidates were working hard over the summer to identify supporter among no-party voters and get absentee ballot request forms from them. Don’t know whether Republicans were doing the same.
desmoinesdem Wed 27 Oct 5:19 PM
Here is the problem with NPs
The main problem in all of our analyses is how we are thinking of NPs. The majority of research I have read suggests that Independents are not as large of a block as most think.
Typically, polls ask Party ID on a seven point scale:
1)Strong Democrat
2)Not so strong Democrat
3)Independent leaning Democrat
4)Independent
5)Independent leaning Republican
6)Not so strong Republican
7)Strong Republican
The actual number of people who fall under category 4 normally hangs around the low teens. Research shows that people in category 3 or 5 are typically closet-partisans. So at the end of the day, I am skeptical when people talk about aggregate figures of No Party voters.
I agree with desmoinesdem in the fact that identifying supporters among no-party voters is being used, and I think it’s most important for putting NP voter numbers in context. It’s really important to mobilize NP leaners (cat3&5) and also persuade the pure NPs (cat4).
thomasjschultz Wed 27 Oct 7:02 PM
the parties have some info from previous campaigns
If they know that registered no-party voter Jane Doe was IDed as a Vilsack supporter in 2002, a Kerry supporter in 2004, and a Culver supporter in 2006, they would certainly contact her–there’s a good chance she will lean toward voting Dem in 2010.
desmoinesdem Wed 27 Oct 10:20 PM
I have been wondering
Do the early voting totals include satellite voting? All I see are absentee numbers, but are these vote totals technically considered absentee?
If they are not being counted yet, then I am optimistic. I imagine that there have been a lot of early voters on the Democratic side who voted early and not by absentee.
iowacitydem Wed 27 Oct 3:59 PM
Answer
Those who vote at satellite voting locations are considered absentee. So the totals include those as well.
thomasjschultz Wed 27 Oct 4:38 PM
yes, they do
I voted early in person, so my absentee ballot was recorded as being requested and returned on the same day to my county auditor (you can check this through “track your absentee ballot” at iowavotes.gov).
desmoinesdem Wed 27 Oct 5:20 PM