Does California Polling Consider Early Voting?

[MadBadger]

That is the question. The reason I feel like it does is using Florida as an example. There was a lot of early voting there and the polls before Florida seemed to match the final results. Does anybody know this answer for sure?

[FrenchieCat]

1. We don't do early voting....we do absentee balloting though.....

But we got our ballots after Iowa.

And most Californians hold on to their ballots for while.

[usregimechange]

4. That scared me for a minute.

[gasoline highway]

2. I'm not exactly sure...

I'm not exactly sure, since it's absentee ballots I don't think they can tell who voted and for what. If we could tell how many people voted early and multiply that by the polls during that period of time and then average it in proportionately with the new polls. Polls have failed us in the past, but I'm starting to believe after the huge rallies, Edwards dropping out, and MOVEON endorsement!

[Thrill]

3. Not sure but the fact that Hillary has spent so much time

there tells you what you need to know. Considering Polls were saying 12+ points in her favor on Monday. Yet she still was spending a ton of time there

[Azathoth]

5. I'm pretty sure they try to account for it somehow in their models

If they didn't, their polls would be utterly useless.

[Cant trust em]

6. I reckon they do

when they call people to ask people who they supported I assume that they people will respond that they've already voted for candidate X. I'm not sure, but it seems like that would be logical. That's what I've been asking when I've done phone banking.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. Nope.

And 22% of the California voting has already been done by mail. If the early voters went heavily for Hillary, it could explain the especially rapid ascent of Obama there.

None the less, it will be the final count that matters. That's the problem with polls -- they can only really be used as an index of change, not necessarily of absolute numbers. So while there is a lot of good news for Obama, no one can tell exactly how the vote will split, other than it will be "fairly" close.

--p!

[Barack_America]

8. No. And that is a concern. n/t

[Barack_America]

11. But then again, how much do they really consider youth voters as well? n/t

[DUyellow]

9. Good question...

[tekisui]

10. If not, I've seen that 20ish% of the Dems have cast their votes.

That leaves 80% for Tues. But that is accepting that they know how many will show up on Tuesday. The larger the turnout, the lower the early vote percentage is.