Heavy absentee voting suggests big turnout Tuesday (Wisconsin Recall)

[WillParkinson]

Heavy absentee voting suggests big turnout Tuesday

Madison - With more than 182,000 absentee ballots requested, high early voting numbers suggest overall turnout in Tuesday's recall election will exceed that of the 2010 governor's race, and in some key locations could even match the 2008 presidential election.

"This is unprecedented," Appleton City Clerk Charlene Peterson said. "We've never seen a statewide recall, so I'm kind of looking at the pulse of the absentee for markers" of overall turnout.

For Peterson, a 20-year clerk, that pulse is steady and strong: Turnout will likely be higher than the 2010 gubernatorial election, when Republican Gov. Scott Walker defeated Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, but lower than the 2008 presidential election.

In Appleton, Peterson reports more than 3,000 absentee ballots have been returned. That's already more than the approximately 2,000 who voted absentee in 2010, but nowhere near the 10,000-plus in 2008's presidential race.

Statewide, the Government Accountability Board tracks around one-third of early voting locations, including most major cities.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/heavy-use-of-absentee-ballots-suggest-big-turnout-tuesday-o85kdf0-156492305.html

[ejpoeta]

1. is that a good sign? i hope so because I fear that if the recall fails

this will just embolden these jerks more.

[rfranklin]

2. Yes, they are counting on it as a vindication of their ideas...

and as just the beginning of their efforts to crush unions and collective bargaining.

[HereSince1628]

4. Please, don't think for a minute that the WI recall will stop 'these jerks'

The corporate confederacy with all it's ALEC type support to low-information legislators isn't going to stop or ease its pressure.

They'll go one trying to buy influence where they haven't got it and doubling and tripling down everywhere else.


No civil right, or social necessity (right to marry, right to equal pay for equal work, education, medicare, social security) is really safe anywhere. Nothing will have been made safer outside of Wisconsin after The Recall...no matter how many victories come to progressive hands on Tuesday.


If the struggle to eliminate the not so invisible hand of nation-less selfish corporate control hasn't yet reached your neighborhood...it will.

The lesson to be learned from The Nation's Dairyland, isn't that Walker and his legislative cronies are kulaks for the corporations who must be stopped.

The lesson to be learned from Wisconsin is there will be rights for common people only as long as they are nurtured and vigorously defended.

[ejpoeta]

5. I don't think they will stop, but if the recall fails I think they will be even worse

if that's possible.

[Suji to Seoul]

3. Turnout is never good for Republicans.

Unless they steal it or manipulate the results, Walker is in deep trouble.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. Are there poll results on how those who didn't vote in 2010 would vote now? That seens to be the missing

[iece in interpreting these absentee ballot request numbers and other predictors of total turnout when everything has been counted.

[PeaceNikki]

7. Democrats and OFA are focusing GOTV efforts in areas where

there were big numbers for Obama and low turnout in fall 2010.

There were 108,000 voters for Obama in 2008 in Milwaukee alone who didn't show up in fall 2010. Barrett lost by 125k. That race was lost in our bluest counties of Milwaukee and Dane and we NEED those folks to show up. Democrats have a dismal record of showing up in mid-term and special elections. That has to change.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Thank goodness!

We had the same damn thing happen here in Philly which is why Corpsebett is in office today as well as Tea Bagger Toomey.

People need to understand that the MUST MUST vote at least once EVERY year (and preferably TWICE to account for primaries). So many around here only vote once every 4 years, although if there is a competitive mayoral race, the turnout may have a slight uptick.

[B Calm]

9. It all depends on who's counting the votes!