Palm Beach County voter registrations skyrocket

Well, perhaps "skyrocket" is too strong a word ... but it's pretty impressive, I think, that there are over 15,000 new registered voters in Palm Beach County since the August primaries. Yeah, it's a little less than a two-percent increase, but hey, we're talking about two months' time here.

When the tally was all-but-completed early today, 45.8 percent were registered as Democrats, 29.7 percent as Republicans and 24.3 percent as other.

While no party can declare victory, the total number now registered is impressive: 825,078 up from the 809,650 who were eligible to vote in the August primary.

"It's pretty big," Assistant County Administrator Brad Merriman said, adding that he didn't know how that compared to prior voter registration spikes that traditionally accompany presidential elections.

The percentages for each party didn't change appreciably -- Palm Beach County historically is a Democratic stronghold -- but it's still nice to see people actually interested in voting.

Now let's see which party does a better job of GOTV (Get Out the Vote). I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count ...

Florida's still swinging

No, the title is not a reference to, for lack of a better term, "geographical anatomy." However, based on the two latest polls on the presidential race, America's Wang™ still could go either way.

Both presidential campaigns can point to new polls that show them ahead in Florida.

SurveyUSA: McCain 49%, Obama 47%

Research 2000: Obama 49%, McCain 45%

The interesting part, as one commenter at the link points out, is the internals on the SUSA poll. They have Obama leading among independents, 47-44, and each has 80% of his own party, yet Huggy Bear has a two-point lead overall? Maybe a little GOP bias in the sample?

Even weirder, SUSA scored it 75-22 for Obama among African-Americans. I'm not saying race has to be a determining factor here, but realistically, how can Huggy be getting 22% among African-Americans? Unless, say, they talked to a disproportionate number of African-American Republicans ...

Bearing out my suspicions, if you drill down even further, you'll see that the overall sample was 44% GOP, 40% Democratic, and 16% independents, in a state where Democrats hold a modest edge of about 41% to 37% over the Republicans in total voter registrations, with 22% registered as independents or with some other affiliation*. Now, granted, many of those Democrats may support Huggy, since historically central and northern Floridians often register as Democrats but vote Republican for president ... but we just don't know that from this poll. We're talking about very small counties anyway, for the most part, so the effect on the poll would -- should -- be minimal.

So we're left with two conclusions: first, take SUSA, or any poll showing Huggy with the lead in Florida, with a grain of salt; and second, we can't let up now. Keep working, keep pushing, keep hustling, right on through November 4. True, Obama doesn't have to win Florida to take the White House ... but it'd be much nicer if we could turn Florida blue.

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* These numbers are based on my own calculations, estimated from 2007 voter registration numbers plus the influx of over 430,000 new registered voters in 2008, some 58% of whom are Democrats. Putting the two together and rounding the numbers just a bit, I estimated:

4,350,000 Democrat
3,900,000 Republican
2,400,000 Independent/Other

for an approximate total of 10,650,000 registered voters in Florida. Again, just an estimate ... but any discrepancy probably would be in the actual tallies rather than in the percentages derived therefrom.

Hey, Florida!! Last day to register to vote is TODAY!

Just a friendly reminder ... if you're a Florida resident, today's the last day to register to vote in order to be eligible to vote in the November 4 general election.

So, don't fuck this up ... make sure you're registered and, if not, do it! The future of the country -- quite literally -- depends on YOU.

You can go to VoteForChange.com and handle everything right from there. Go. Now.






What are you waiting for? GO ALREADY!

Why Obama can win Florida

The new polls showing Barack Obama in the lead in Florida notwithstanding, there is more proof -- more viable, long-range proof -- demonstrating that Obama has an excellent chance of winning Florida's 27 crucial electoral votes next month.

The Palm Beach Post today published a study of new voter registration statistics in Florida, and the news is very good for Democrats. Of the 430,000 new voters in the state, Democratic numbers increased twice as much as Republicans. Moreover, the new voters skew more culturally and ethnically diverse and younger than before.

According to figures from the Florida Division of Elections:

• Of all newly registered voters since Jan. 29, 58 percent are Democrats.

• Republicans account for about 24 percent of new voters, while 18 percent have registered in a third party or as independents.

• The rush of new voters in the past seven months has flipped the registration lead from Republican to Democrat in Pinellas and Orange counties, two swing counties on opposite ends of the Interstate 4 corridor, the biggest battleground in the state.

The Post analysis of the data shows:

• The number of black voters between 35 and 49 years old increased 13 percent in seven months in Florida, while the number of white voters of the same age remained about the same.

• For every woman who registers Republican, 2.3 females are signing up as Democrats.

• The average age among registered voters in the state's largest county, Miami-Dade, dropped by almost six months since Jan. 29.

"The data echoes what we've heard from the Obama campaign, that their emphasis would be on registering voters and increasing the electorate," said Harold Stanley, a Southern Methodist University political science professor. "But these are groups of voters who normally aren't so enthusiastic about participating, particularly those under 30."

Naturally, the Republicans pooh-pooh those statistics, suggesting that "getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for America," according to McCain adviser Greg Stimple, will be the way to go for this election. It's funny -- they must be living in an alternate universe if they think Obama is liberal. Granted, he's more liberal than Huggy Bear, but most normal people are ...

Anyway, the point is that there are literally hundreds of thousands of new voters in a key swing state, and the vast majority of them are going to vote for Obama. Not only will that have major implications for the presidential race, the down-ticket races are going to be affected as well.

For once, the news isn't good for Huggy ...

A nice problem to have

Amidst all the buffoonery that characterizes elections in Palm Beach County, there's good election-related news, too: the state Division of Elections is getting so many applications for newly registered voters, they are asking counties to help them manage them all.

The state is being swamped by third-party groups gathering applications, such as the National Rifle Association and even Barack Obama's campaign, which aims to register 500,000 new voters before Oct. 6.

State officials say they have a backlog of 32,000 applications - including 25,000 received on Tuesday alone - awaiting entry, Palmer wrote. They've processed 30,308 since June. And they don't know how many more they'll get before Oct. 6.

Despite hiring 25 temporary employees working 12- to 16-hour shifts, the division can't keep up, Palmer wrote, and will need to send the applications back to local officials for data entry and scanning.

State officials say they are still able to verify the voter's identification after the forms are entered under the "no match, no vote" law implemented two weeks ago. The law requires that a voter's Social Security or driver license number match federal or state databases.

"They haven't properly planned for the voter registration applications. That was perfectly foreseeable. ... I didn't plan on doing the work of the Division of Elections in 2008," said Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho.

[...]

The volume of applications raises the specter that all of the new applications may not be entered into the system by the Oct. 19 deadline, the day before early voting begins.

"That's not going to happen. Either we will get it done, or they (the counties) will get it done," Department of State spokeswoman Jennifer Krell Davis said.

If voters show up on Election Day or for early voting and they are not on the rolls, they will have to cast a provisional ballot. But provisional ballots have a much higher chance of being tossed out, according to elections experts.

The Washington-based Advancement Project released a report Wednesday outlining problems with provisional ballots. Of the 14,550 provisional ballots cast in Florida's 2006 general election, 3,857, or nearly 27 percent, were rejected, the report found.

Yes, the risk of many provisional ballots being cast remains high and, given the Florida GOP's attempts to disenfranchise as many voters as possible, we still might face problems on November 4.

However, the vast majority of the new voters are Democrats, and that bodes extremely well for our hopes of kicking the rat-bastard Republicans out on their asses -- a fate they so richly deserve.

So, here's to more whining from the poor, overworked Division of Elections. You may need help with registrations, but the country needs help to overcome the problems the Republicans have created in recent years.