First, off, I want to give a shout out to dansac, who already discussed early voting in Ohio.  I want to add some analysis about WHY EXACTLY early voting is (or might be) a boon to Obama in Ohio. I think this AP NEWS article does a HORRIBLE job of explaining the nuance of the issue.

Hello to all. This is my first diary but it won't be long. After observing this primary race for the last year, the animosity that has emerged within the Democratic Party can have lasting effects upon supporters. Because this primary has lasted for so long the eventual nominee will, seemingly, not have enough time to properly prepare for the Republicans.  

Early voting just ended here in Indiana.  The number of early votes in this year's primary election is expected to pass the 162,068 early ballots cast in the 2002 general election.  127,247 had been cast by Thursday according to the Indiana Secretary of State with more than 14,000 cast Thursday alone.

Early voting in North Carolina ended Saturday afternoon with a surge of Black voters heading to the polls. Comparing the Sunday final report with the Saturday 6 am report, of the final 60,708 early voters in the Democratic primary, 47.8% were Black and 47.6% white (the remainder were American Indian, Asian, or no race was listed on their registration record.)

Based on the state maintained early voter database, of the 387,049 Democratic primary ballots, 40.6% were cast by Black voters and 57.3% by whites.

Almost 60,000 votes were cast yesterday in the North Carolina primary, bringing the total early vote to 398,635. These numbers are great news for Obama, as the percentage of Black voters has jumped from 37% to 40% over the past few days.

see updated diary at
http://www.dailykos.com/... covering Saturday

Early voting in North Carolina is through the roof. As of close of business Friday, there had been 326,341 Democratic ballots cast (275,329 Democrats + 51,012 Unaffiliated), 72,280 GOP ballots (63,863 Republicans + 8417 unaffiliated) and 912 unaffiliated voters just voted the nonpartisan judicial ballot.
Based on the state maintained early voter database, of the Democratic ballots, 39.3% were cast by Black voters and 57.3% by whites.  The cumulative black turnout rose by 0.5% yesterday, meaning the one day rise was far sharper.

Early Indiana turnout heavy in strong Obama counties

Early voting in Indiana could offer some encouragement to presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who needs a victory in its upcoming primary after a tough few weeks on the campaign trail.

Obama victories in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6 could help him regain momentum in his nomination fight against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama has been on the defensive because of comments by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and his own comments about people in small towns growing bitter.

About 20 percent of the 127,000-plus absentee ballots received as of early Friday were cast in three Indiana counties — Marion, Monroe and Lake — that political observers believe Obama is strongly favored to win.

Lake County has a large population of black voters and is in Chicago's shadow. Obama has typically won big among college-age voters, and Monroe County is the home of Indiana University in Bloomington. Obama's campaign sought out IU students with voter registration and early voting drives and a free Dave Matthews concert.

I previously diaried about early voting in North Carolina, reporting data that the first 99,000 Democratic primary voters broke down 38% Black and 59% White and later with 175,238 Democratic ballots cast the numbers changed slightly to 38.5% Black and 58.1% White.  Now after two more days of early voting (with just two days left before the Saturday 1 pm deadline) there have been 260,939 Democratic ballots cast with the Black percentage rising to 38.8% and the White dropping to 57.7%. Most pollsters are estimating a minority turnout of 33%. While it remains to be seen whether election day turnout matches early voter demographics, the minority percentage has actually been increasing as early voting has progressed, indicating a steadily increasing interest in the Black community.

37.7% of registered Democrats are black according to North Carolina State Board of Elections statistics, while of registered Democrats casting early votes so far, 42.6% are Black. Just 2.4% of unaffiliated voters are Black, but 18.6% of the unaffiliated voters casting early voting ballots are Black.

This morning I pulled in data for the first nine days of early voting (through Friday) in North Carolina and did a breakdown of Democratic primary in person (one-stop, the statute calls them) early voters by race, also breaking down by whether the voters themselves were D or U. NC allows unaffiliated to vote in either primary but does not allow party crossovers.

Of the Democrats, 42% were Black, 55% White, 1% Native American, the remaining 2% were Asian, other, multi-race, or did not list a race.

Of the Unaffiliated 16% were Black, 78% White, 1% Native American, the remaining 4% were Asian, other, multi-race, or did not list a race.

Of the total pool of early voters in the Democratic primary, 38% were Black, 59% White, 1% Native American, the remaining 2% were Asian, other, multi-race, or did not list a race.

Early voting here in North Carolina began on April 17, 2008. Since then, nearly 60,000 voters have already cast their ballot, and of that nearly 60,000, over 40,000 were Democratic ballots!.

From Raleigh News and Observer

According to results posted Sunday by the State Board of Elections, voters requesting absentee ballots by mail, members of the U.S. military voting elsewhere, overseas voters and one-stop voters are far more interested in the Democratic primary.

So far, 36,011 registered Democrats have voted early, 11,741 registered Republicans and 9,794 unaffiliated voters.

This is not a candidate diary.  This is nothing more than a little anecdote about what my wife and I observed while early voting on Friday in Texas.  There just happen to be certain aspects of the experience I thought a few of you might appreciate.

In my Feb. 13 diary, I talked about why I voted for John Edwards in the Texas Democratic Primary .

I chose to vote during early voting and the "real" primary day is tomorrow.  I serve my county as a precinct chair and tomorrow I am serving as an election judge.

In both of those capacities, I'm pretty much as involved as I can get!

A massive Democratic turnout shattered previous early voting records in Texas, according to the Texas Secretary of State. Early voting ended Friday.

As of Thursday night 242,197 Republican voters had voted in person or voted by mail and 717,469 Democratic voters had completed early voting in the 15 largest counties according to Secretary of State of Texas.

The massive Democratic turnout has Republicans feeling blue.

The vast majority of those ballots were cast in the Democratic primary, a turnout that gave Republican officials pause in this traditionally "red" state.

I thought I could zip in and out of the early voting polling location on West Gray here in Houston and vote during lunch, today.  Well, after standing in line for an hour, I voted for our next President, Barack Obama, and next U.S. Senator from Texas, Rick Noriega.  

While standing in line for an hour to vote you could feel the rush of energy that identifies this as an historic campaign.  All I could think of was how confident I was casting my vote for Senator Barack Obama.  Although I'd been a John Edwards supporter since 2004 (and his name was on the ballot here in Texas) I've really grown to love and respect Senator Obama's message of change.  I think we all really feel it deep inside and while I'm glad Senator Clinton is running for President, I am ready for the day when she will throw her support to Senator Obama and help the party win the election in November.

It's the last day of early voting in Texas, and the numbers have already been incredible.

But OMG, you should see the lines today.

I have said it here before, but I will give my background just for those who don't know. I voted for GWB the first time around, thinking he would be the education president. Not that it mattered, his carrying Texas was a foregone conclusion. In fact, I live in Collin, one of the reddedst counties in Texas, where the only real conversation was during the Republican Primaries, about whether McCain or Bush would be the president nominee. Anyway, after Saddam failed to gas our troops, I figured out it was all a lie. Not only were there no nukes, there weren't even minor WMD like gas or biological. So in 2004 I voted Kerry. Fast forward to the present.

The first day of early voting (February 19th) got off to a bang, thanks to a vote-in on the UT campus and the march to vote by students at Prairie View A&M.  All throughout the state, voters turned out in record numbers, emphasizing that Texans are excited and eager to cast their votes.

But, guess what folks?

It turns out that that increase has continued to hold.  Today is day 5 in the 11-day Texas early voting period.  We'll look at some numbers.  

More after the jump.

This will be my first diary, and I know this is something that probably has been said before, but I felt it important and moving enough for me to write something.  I am definitely not as articulate as many on this site, and this is a personal anecdote, but I felt it might be good enough to share.

I have never really considered myself influential.  As opinionated as I am, I do not try to shove my ideas down other peoples' throats.  When I received the "Barack Obama is a Muslim" smear e-mail last May from my boss at the time, however, it got my ire up to say the least.  I had been involved in the local grassroots movement for Obama since February 2007, and I was just not in the mood to let the e-mail slide that day.

The company that I was employed with was dominated by right-wing, good-ol'-boy, "Bush-is-doing-the-best-he-can-do" fearpushers.  So it didn't surprise me that the e-mail was sent, but who was on the list of recipients did.  Vice-presidents of companies.  Corporate contacts.  People that would know that this e-mail was a blatant falsehood - and then, of course, all of us subordinates and co-workers.  

As they say, I think, more below the fold.