Posted on 10/25/2016 11:52:11 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Newly released numbers in Florida indicate a head-to-head battle for the states 29 electoral votes.
Republicans account for about 654,000, or 41.5 percent of the votes, while Democrats account for 638,000, or 40.5 percent of the votes Tuesday morning, according to Politico Playbook.
Florida Republicans cast 3 percent more ballots than Democrats by absentee mail-in voting in 2o12, according to NBC News. But, by Nov. 1, 2012 (five days before the Nov. 6 election date), fortunes were reversed, with Democrats turning in 3 percent more ballots. With 43 percent of the 4.3 million votes belonging to Democrats, and 40 percent belonging to registered Republicans, the results were unquestionable.
The current 1 percent advantage maintained by Republicans may not hold as in-person voting begins this week. The past two election cycles reveal that while Republicans dominate the absentee-by-mail voting bloc, such advantages are not propelling Republican nominees to a Florida victory.
Republicans cast more votes that Democrats through absentee-by-mail by a margin of 49 to 33 percent, and yet, Arizona Sen. John McCain lost Florida to then-Sen. Barack Obama by almost 3 percent. Obama defeated Romney in Florida during the 2012 election, despite Romney outperforming the president with absentee-by-mail votes.
It is worth noting that in such a turbulent election year, it is hard to determine which percentage of Republicans are supporting the top of the ticket and Republican nominee Donald Trump, and the same can be said about Democrat candidates for public office, including presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who engaged in a bruising primary battle with insurgent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Polls are meaningless. The only Republicans voting for Hillary are the ones committed to crime as a way of life. There are not very many of those.
Now you do
I never use to, but Mr. Trump encouraged it....
....so my husband and I early voted during the Primary and the General
I suspect a LOT more folks are doing that this election!
“This CNN Republican Strategist can’t be happy.”
the enemedia is totally lying about this as well. A couple of days ago I saw the Colorado GOP Chairman, Steve House, speak along with GOP Senate candidate Darryl Glenn, who now FINALLY and UNEQUIVOCALLY supports Trump.
Steve House flat out said that the fortunes of the entire GOP down ticket in Colorado rests entirely with the fortunes of Trump in Colorado. Period.
They got the word big time in Colorado when their switchboards and email boxes were jammed with cries of outrage when Glenn repudiated Trump a while back, and the party here didn’t seem to be fully supporting Trump.
I assume it has been pretty much the same in most other states.
But naturally the enemedia refuses to report any of this, still pounding on the GOP-won’t-support-Trump drum, which is patently untrue.
Plus the undecideds and disillusioned (the other 10-15%) who dont like either candidate are going trump for the most part.
It is about time for the polls to start to go to their “best and final” numbers.
Some future business relies on them being good predictors, so they typically pull closer to the actual in the last two weeks.
I still say will win.
Trump will win.
Agreed the data in the article suggests Rs are down from where they were in 12 and they lost it then.
Not saying Trump will lose FL, but the data in the article does not match the headline.
My biggest issue is with fellow Christians who have no problem voting for Hillary. We are evangelical and conservative and we are split on the vote. Fortunately a few are not citizens who prefer Crooked.
I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that Christians want to vote for Hillary knowing her stance on abortion, Islam, Christianity, and her blatant criminality. I doubt their devotion and their intelligence.
I understand there are legitimate reasons to vote early, such as the case where one must be out of town on business on Election Day.
Also, I understand that early voting is encouraged in some states, and has become commonplace, whereas in other states it is both rare and discouraged.
However, I find some of the discussion on FR about early vs not early voting a bit disturbing. For example, one FReeper actually referred to waiting to vote on Election Day as “procrastination”.
The justifications for voting early seems to fall into three groups;
1) convenience (avoiding long lines, avoiding a schedule conflict by expanding the possible voting days, avoiding a trip the the voting place).
2) psychological advantage (the appearance of momentum, or countering the same on the opposing side).
3). Avoiding an unforeseen event that may occur on voting day that might prevent voting when it’s too late to find a workaround (a natural disaster or machine malfunction).
Hold on just a minute.
Shouldn’t the pros and cons of allowing early voting all be subordinated to the overriding objective of getting a fair and accurate vote?
Whatever advantages an early voting period provides, can’t we all admit that it’s effect on the probability of getting a fair and accurate vote can only be negative?
Maybe we can sacrifice some security for convenience, but let’s at least admit that’s what we are doing.
For example, it has been argued that asking for ID may be a hardship and “suppress voting rights” of certain classes. Ok, I disagree, but if we do accept voting without ID to make it easier, let’s admit that’s the reason and that we’ve just sacrificed some degree of certainty that we have a fair and accurate vote. Because if the goal is “one citizen, one vote”, by not requiring ID, the ability to assure only voting age citizens vote, and only vote once, has just been weakened substantially.
The same can be said for early voting. All manner of voter monitoring and checking is complicated exponentially by increasing the period of time, the various ways, and the number of places in which a person can vote.
I wish there was one Election Day, where everyone must present ID in front of many witnesses and dip their right index finger in a bowl of indelible ink. Before voting, each voter must hold their inkless right index finger in the air for all to see that they have not yet voted. All voting would be done behind a curtain, but all votes would be counted in full view of the public on the day of voting.
Obviously, this isn’t the most convenient system. Adding more days, more ways, more locations, fewer witnesses, more automation, fewer restrictions, would make voting more convenient.
But we should all be honest with ourselves that EVERY change made for convenience is also a weakening of security, and a sacrifice to the accuracy and fairness of the vote. Even if voters were given the convenience of dipping not just the right index finger, but any finger they choose - the task of checking fingers for ink has just increased tenfold.
This is like saying that when I park my car, it is not worth taking my car keys out of the ignition, removing valuables, and locking my car, because then I have all this stuff to carry, I have to fumble for my keys, risk losing my keys, when I return I have to unlock the car, reload my valuables, and put the keys back in the ignition.
There is no question that doing all those things is inconvenient, but whether or not it’s WORTH doing all those things - that is a completely different question.
I should add that when I voted early on Monday, I (along with everybody else) was asked to show a valid photo ID and my voter registration card. Voter ID, where it is used, largely eliminates the possibility of in-person voter fraud, whether the voter participates in early voting or shows up on Election Day; but where it isn’t used, I hardly think the solution is to eliminate early voting and restrict voting once again to limited hours on a single day. That would just disenfranchise more taxpayer-citizens by preventing them from exercising their right to vote, which is the least desirable outcome possible.
I will concede your point that the convenience of early voting need not be mutually exclusive with securing a fair and accurate vote. Texas seems to be an example of that.
I think my point is still valid though, when directed toward the many states where there is a bias toward going to great lengths to overcome hurdles that may prevent people from voting, even though those hurdles were placed there precisely to assure the vote is fair and accurate.
Such hurdles include the fact that you are not a citizen, the fact that you have no ID, the fact that you may already have voted, the fact that you are a felon, the fact that you are deceased.
The democrats have discovered that they can win many votes by labelling these unqualified people as “disenfranchised” and pandering to them by removing the hurdles, and by making voting so easy (and profitable) for them - transporting them, registering them on the spot, paying their “expenses”, practically pulling the lever for them.
It is largely the democrats that benifit from the extended period of early voting, just as not requiring an ID benifits them.
Look, I don’t want to interfere with rules that make voting more convenient for responsible voters. What bothers me is that most of the accommodations are pushed by the democrat party to make it easier, and give them more time to drag people to the polls who otherwise would not bother to vote, and pay them to vote democrat.
That’s largely what’s happening, maybe not in Texas.
What I’d like to see is more hurdles. People should have to pass a civics test (in English) with some easy questions about our history, our founding fathers, founding documents and current events. Totally non partisan of course, but everyone should be able to pick out our flag from a group of flags, say who is currently POTUS and vp, who is running for POTUS, how many states (Obama couldn’t get that one), how many senators, maybe name two sitting Supreme Court justices. And they should want to vote enough to get themselves to a polling place, or at least make their own arrangements.
Why should people vote who have no idea who/what they are voting for, wouldn’t lift a finger to vote if they weren’t being driven there, having all expenses paid, being registered democrat on the spot, and being told who to vote for?
I attended a zoning board hearing in my small town and we began by standing and saying the pledge of allegiance and everyone who gave testimony had to be present, sign in and be sworn in with the oath that ends with “..so help me God”.
Everyone at the meeting had received a mailing but had to have enough initiative to care about the issue, remember the date, and arrange to get themselves there on time. In my case, I had to reschedule another meeting.
My point is that in civic duty there is often a self-selection process that naturally weeds out the lazy, the ignorant and the apathetic so that those involved in the decision tend to be intelligent, caring citizens.
I’m not talking about accommodations such as wheelchair ramps or microphones for the hearing impaired - I’m just saying if a bus showed up to stack the meeting with a bunch of people who obviously had no idea what the meeting was about, and they were each clutching a $20 bill and told how to vote - I’d say the system was rigged.
As it was, there was no bus, no reminders, no paid expensed, no alternate date for attending, and I’m glad.
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