Florida is one of four states that could determine who wins the presidency. Polls in the last few months are showing that President Obama is favored to win over Romney:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/...
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/...(fl-oh-and-pa)/release-detail?ReleaseID=1727
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/...
But as we all know, being favored by the majority of voters -- especially in Florida -- does not mean winning the election.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
In 2008 Obama won Florida by just 2.5 percent. Two factors accounted for his victory. First, Florida opened the polls two weeks early. Even so, long lines across the state prompted the governor to issue an emergency order extending the hours for early voting. That enabled waves of new voters, often minorities and students to vote. Early voting also included voting the Sunday before election day.
In 2011, HB 1355 was passed in Florida, reducing early voting from two weeks to one. Voting the Sunday before the election was eliminated. Voters can no longer update their addresses at the polls on election day. So even though President Obama has been favored in polls, it might be that people who think they will be voting in November will find that they can't.
The new law makes the requirements for registering new voters so burdensome that the League of Women Voters of Florida has suspended their efforts to register new voters. This means that the new crop of high school seniors they have traditionally registered each spring are not being assisted in getting registered. Rock the Vote has also given up on registering people in Florida.
In 2008, in Florida alone, Rock the Vote helped 139,551 people register to vote, most of them college-age voters. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.... (The League of Women Voters doesn't keep similar statistics)
In 2008, Obama won in Florida with a 236,450 lead over McCain (http://en.wikipedia.org/...). But since HB 1355 took effect, 81,417 fewer Floridians have registered to vote than during the same period before the 2008 election. http://floridaindependent.com/...
Currently, some lawsuits against the law are pending:
http://www.brennancenter.org/...
http://www.brennancenter.org/...
In the meantime, young people aren't being registered. I think we can forget about those high school seniors that would have been registered in their government classes.
At this rate, can Obama win Florida? Can he win the presidency without Florida?