‘OVERALL’ SCENE: People line up to cast early ballots yesterday in Iowa, among the states that allow in-person voting ahead of Election Day. (
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WASHINGTON — Forget Nov. 6 — for many Americans, Election Day is here already.
Iowans lined up around the block at a Des Moines polling place yesterday as the first early voters in a crucial swing state cast their ballots.
Out of 550 early voters in Polk County, which includes Des Moines, 401 were registered Democrats, 90 were Republicans, 57 had no affiliation and two were considered “other.”
Regardless of when ballots are cast, the votes won’t be counted until Election Day.
“We were steady with a line outside our office. It’s definitely more than four years ago,” said Polk County auditor Jamie Fitzgerald.
Democrats in Iowa so far have a big edge in the number of absentee ballots requested.
Out of 186,000 Iowans to request a ballot, 64 percent — or 119,000 — came from Democrats. Republicans asked for 25,000 ballots, or 13 percent of the total, while 22 percent went to people with no party affiliation.
The numbers reflect a concerted effort by President Obama’s campaign to bank as many early votes as possible, although Mitt Romney’s camp just sent out an early-voting mailer in the state in a bid to catch up.
In addition to Iowa, early voting in person has begun in Wyoming, Vermont, Idaho and South Dakota, and absentee voting has started in 30 states, including swing states North Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia.
New Yorkers have to wait until Oct. 2 to cast absentee ballots, and they can’t vote early in a polling place.
In North Carolina, out of 79,000 ballot requests so far, 53 percent came from Republicans and 27 percent from Democrats, which reflects a typical GOP advantage in early voting there. In Ohio, where early in-person voting starts Tuesday, more than 700,000 people have requested absentee ballots, far ahead of 2008 levels.
“It’s a little worrying for Republicans to see that many Democrats who have requested ballots [nationwide]. But I don’t think at this point now I would be hitting the panic button yet,” said Michael McDonald, a political-science professor at George Mason University.
“The rates of ballot requests look to be on par with 2008 right now,” he added, the latest sign of an “energized electorate.”
In battleground Colorado, where Romney has a campaign event Monday, more than half the votes will be cast before Election Day.
One concern for Romney is that early voting starts at a time when he is trailing Obama by 6 points in the latest Gallup national tracking average, and running behind in Ohio and other states that also get a jump.
Obama leads Romney by 4.5 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average of Iowa polls.
Both sides like to run up early votes, which pollster J. Ann Selzer likened to an insurance policy. “What that protects you against is [if] your candidate says something ridiculous or something terrible happens. You already have that vote banked,” she said.