Another Early Voting Update
Secretary of State Todd Rokita’s staff has the statewide early/absentee voting numbers posted HERE. As of today, about 366,000 early/absentee ballots are received by County Clerks and Election Boards across the State of Indiana.
Of that 36,000 (almost 10%) early votes are from Marion County alone, or about 60 votes per precinct.
UPDATE 10/30: The early vote number is now 51,094 with today’s update. We’re rapidly approaching the 100 early votes per precinct average.
As a sidenote, Secretary Rokita will be a guest this weekend, Saturday at 3 PM Eastern on Hoosier Access Live
October 29th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
I think two things are getting mixed up here. Last I say a couple days ago, Marion County had had 54,000 early voters and probably now are over 60,000. The Star article said Beth Whit expects 80,000. It may actually be a little higher than that.
If the Marion County number used by the SOS is 36,000 then they’re probably using dated information or quite possibly treating absentee and early votes differently while you’re lumping them together.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
The real question is how many of those are NEW voters and how many are voters who have voted before and are just voting early ?
October 30th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Paul - I get the numbers from the George Mason University Early Vote Project. The numbers from there for Marion County are early votes in person only. Not absentee. The number reported from the SoS office is absentee and early votes. As of the 29th there were 44,700 early in person votes reported. That’s 75 per precinct not counting absentee by mail.
MikeB - Good question. With the push by That One to get people to vote early I’d say it’s a lot of the “new voters”
October 30th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Not to belabor the point, but the Indianapolis Star reported today that Marion County Clerk Beth White has upped her prediction of early voters to 110,000. They were well past 60,000 yesterday. It seems the numbers are in conflict with GMU’s numbers. I’d be a lot more inclined to believe the Clerk’s numbers than GMU’s. The Clerk is on the front line of what’s going on.
October 30th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
It’s the Star. I noticed they changed the article since I last read it earlier.
Before the Star changed the article, they had the official early number in the article, 44,700. This 100,000 or 110,000 or whatever numbers is strictly conjecture on part of the Clerk and the Star. She’s making predictions. She does know (or should have a rough guesstimate) how many mail in votes are in the Clerk’s office. Considering there are 3 1/2 days left to vote early (All day Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and until noon on Monday) at 5000 per day which is the average so far spread among three sites, and figure 2000 last minute procrastinating Monday voters in the Clerk’s office that’s almost 62,000 early votes by Monday afternoon, Add in the mail in’s and that could reach 100,000.