HEAVY early voting in Illinois

[ChairmanAgnostic]

Last week, the waits were 20-30 minutes.

This week, up to an hour just to vote early.

This morning, an elections board rep stated that absentee requests were as high as during a presidential election - translation, wow!

That means a couple of things: Early voting is a success, and important for many people. Also, any argument that there is an enthusiasm gap is absolutely ridiculous.

[democrat_patriot]

1. Hopefully they be Democrats.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. only time will tell, but still,

the fact that so many are voting cannot be bad news.

[Hawkowl]

3. I predict a Dem blowout

There is no way that the African American community is going to stay at home while a native son is putting it all on the line and exhorting everyone to vote.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. I just hope that proves true down the entire ballot

[Hawkowl]

5. It's a possibility

Polls would significantly underestimate minority turnout in a mid-term, because historically it has been true. However, if we get a much higher minority turnout in 2010, I think that the only major difference would be Obama. The constant MSM bashing of Obama has got to infuriate the minority community-- especially after the kid glove treatment shrub got. I think the minority vote could really be the death blow to the moribund rethuglicans. At least it is the straw of hope I'm clinging to!

[BolivarianHero]

17. Calfornia

Hispanics are generally 15 - 20% of the electorate even though they make up 1/3 of the documented population. That's why Republicans hate motor voter and other accessible registration policies...Even corporate Democrats like it because it turns out voters who support them and indirectly, the factions of the plutocracy they represent.

As a middle-class White male, I appreciated the lenient registration laws we have in Canada when I voted in my local elections yesterday; bring ID and proof of address to the polls and you get to vote and be put on the list forever, thus getting a nice little card reminding you of when and where to vote come election time.

[Deep13]

6. "Heavy" ought to be good for us.

We can only hope.

[madrchsod]

7. shit i have to get down there and vote....

[Dawson Leery]

8. If these are minority and working people, then the pundits will have egg on their face.

[WildEyedLiberal]

9. My absentee ballot was received last week!

:woohoo:

[Cal33]

10. Any hint from polls as to who is ahead?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. Nope. Silence be golden.

[saltpoint]

11. I hope the so-called enthusiasm gap is total fiction and

that a powerful majority of those early ballots cast are blue.

The Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senator are notably awful.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. It is

In the universe of people polled they are correct, but they are missing a whole group.. Vann charts

[saltpoint]

14. I think your take is accurate, nadinbrzezinski.

In a lot of these races that were Republican blowouts by earlier polling, the numbers are tightening. And a few Democrats are actually pulling away -- Brown and Boxer in California, to name two of my favorites!

I am trying as hard as I can not to think of how close some of these Bagger candidates are to being elected. Sharron Angle? Good god.

[Dawson Leery]

18. +1

If Democrats turnout their base (which is large than the Republican base), they will hold respectable majorities in congress.

[davsand]

15. Can't speak for other places, but in my county early voting has been strong.

I work down the hall from the County Clerk's office and the early voters have been out and doing their thing for the last week or so. There have been a fair amount of voters that are older (at least from what I have observed) but I have been tickled to see people out and actually voting in what has been predicted to be a lower turnout election.



Laura

[Gabi Hayes]

16. meow!