Well, Michelle did it.
First lady Michelle Obama isn't your typical voter, but she did something this morning that is increasingly common: She voted early.
And she's not the only one. A few days back, I came across a pair of articles by election expert Michael P. McDonald, posted at pollster.com. For Ohio:
Early voting usually begins to pick up pace as the election nears.
But something special is going on in two Ohio Democratic strongholds: Cuyahoga and Franklin counties. I track on this handy web page that other places around the country -- including other Ohio counties -- are so far reporting low single digit early voting rates. In stark contrast, over 112,000 votes have already been cast in these two Ohio counties. As a comparison, this represents over ten percent of all ballots cast in the 2006 election in these counties, with still some time to go.
And for Iowa:
Something is afoot in Iowa. Not only have nearly 120,000 voters already cast their ballot, registered Democrats are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than Republicans in nearly every Iowa county. This, in part, explains the approximately 5:3 partisan registration advantage Democrats have over Republicans among mail ballots returned so far in the Hawkeye state.
Something is indeed afoot, but not what it seems. That is, don't take this as evidence that Dems are making a remarkable resurgence compared to conventional wisdom. What it probably means is that:
- early voting is now institutionally part of GOTV
- Dem voting may well be as good or better than usual, but that has nothing to do with whether R voting will be terrific (see 2004.)
- some counties are going out of their way to help citizens vote. Franklin and Cuyahoga counties in Ohio are prime examples.
For comparison purposes, we have the unsatisfactory apples-to-oranges Presidential year of 2008 (this being an off-year with Obama not on the ballot), and a few voting years before that. McDonald says:
While President Obama performed well among early voters in 2008, it should be noted that in previous elections Republicans generally performed better among early voters as early voters tended to fit a more Republican profile: they tended to be older, better educated, and be composed of fewer minorities. It will be interesting to observe if 2010 will mark a continuation of 2008 or a reversion to previous elections.
In that context, we may be doing better than pre-2008. The data that McDonald has collected suggests that compared to 2006, the early voting in Iowa that's already in represents more than 13% of the total vote in 2006, which is a higher percentage than in other states doing early voting this year (at this stage for other states, that number is 1-5%.) So Iowa is getting their votes in early, and without knowing results, the early votes trend "casted by D".
But does that affect the outcome? In other words, how predictive is early voting compared to final result? Before even trying to look at that, it's important to be clear that we don't know who people voted for in these early ballot stories, only which party's ballots are being returned. You can assume as a best case scenario that Democrats voted for the D and Republicans voted for the R, but that may or may not be true everywhere (see Delaware, where many Republicans will vote for the Democrat Coons and not the Republican O'Donnell; see the FL panhandle, where the D's vote R; see Alaska where all bets are off.)
One thing we can do is look at 2008 (remember, a Presidential year) and what we knew at this stage. In 2008, blogger X Curmudgeon collected commercial and public polling data for the states on early voting:
Iowa Early Voting {2008}
SUSA (as of 10/29) (32% of sample)
Obama 69% (+40)
McCain 29%
SUSA (as of 10/9) (14% of sample)
Obama 65% (+34)
McCain 31%
Big 10 Battleground (10/19-10/22) (3.4% of sample)
Obama 70% (+40)
McCain 30%
In that first SUSA link, Obama lead by 40 (noted as +40) with early voters, and/but by only +3 with those who said they'd vote on election day. The final Iowa election result was Obama 54-45 (a +9, reflecting the greater number of election day voters.)
Michael P. McDonald has more data here for 2008 Iowa:
Party (total early vote 481,179)
Dem 46.9%
Rep 28.9%
No/Oth 24.2%
That looks like the same 5:3 ratio we have now. So, if that's no worse than 2008, that would be a good thing for Democrats (2008 was a decent year, and there was no "enthusiasm" gap.) But still, the final result was much closer, so the predictive value really isn't there as to what happens in November. All those people intending to vote can still show up on election day, and that's the number that counts.
So what about Ohio? The Cleveland and Columbus counties in Ohio are also voting early (they represent a similar 13-14% of 2004 votes cast, and thus match Iowa - no one else does.) In this case, it seems like there's a structural reason.
Paul Gronke, a non-partisan researcher and politcial scientist from Reed College, follows early voting and notes on his blog:
I have been tracking early vote returns with the team at the Early Voting Information Center. A recent exchange with Matt Damschroder, the deputy director of the Board of Elections in Franklin County, OH, unearthed a fascinating administrative experiment underway in Ohio.
Damschroder, and his counterpart in Cuyahoga County, OH, have implemented some procedures to make it easier for their registered voters to return their ballots. Both counties:
- Send no-excuse absentee applications to all voters on the NVRA list
- Paid for postage for registered voters to return their voted absentee ballot
- Cuyahoga only also is paying postage for registered voters to mail in their absentee ballot application.
Given this administrative innovation, it should be possible to examine the responsiveness of citizens to administrative outreach with respect to no-excuse absentee voting. The patterns are fascinating: self-identified partisans are dramatically more responsive to these outreach efforts.
So, easy early voting brings out the partisans, and the non-affiliated take their time. This is yet another reminder that most people are not political junkies like us. Oh, and btw, this year the non-affiliated may not lean D, whenever they do show.
So, what to look for in "early voting" stories? Context. See what the population in question did in 2006 and 2008. See, if a poll, what the comparison is between early voters and election day voters (and see how different the more numerous election day voters are.) And don't make any assumptions that this year is exactly like any other year, or that early votes tells us what comes next. When I asked Prof. Gronke for a comment on early voting and partisanship, he noted, "it's really unmapped territory, and I'm pretty leery of concluding much." Good advice.
Follow early voting at the United States Election Project and the Early Voting Information Center.