The last few times I’ve looked at www.electoral-vote.com it’s had Bush slightly ahead, with neither having enough EVs to score a decision. Today, on Election Eve, it shows Kerry 298 vs. Bush 231. Nice turn around. Still I’m hearing on the radio that Bush is leading ever so slightly nationally and by slightly more here in Florida. I think that the truth is that the pollsters really don’t know.
Here’s a couple of things I think will affect tomorrow’s election:
Weather - bad weather in the swing states will go in the Republicans’ favor, especially if we have
Long lines at the Polling places. I went by one of our early polling sites in Pinellas today. I couldn’t get into the parkling lot and I assume if I did there wasn’t a parking space. I decided to take my chances and go tomorrow. In Florida it will be very hot tomorrow, which may make it difficult for some folks to stand on line.
Challenges. A lot of challenges by the Republicans may affect item #2 above, which if the weather is bad may help depress turn out. Or if current lines at polling places persist, then not everyone may be able to get their vote in. Again this plays to the Republicans. I’ll point out that there are eight fairly complicated amendments proposed on the Florida ballot. If people are reading through these and trying to figure them out at the polls it will affect the voter throughput.
I don’t think this one will play out, at least not in Florida. By some estimates, 20% of Florida voters will have voted early by tomorrow. Given that there are far more election day polling places than early voting polling places, the lines you have seen so far probably won’t translate to tomorrow. Early voting may have taken a lot of the pressure off of election day, as far as long lines are concerned.
I reckon Kerry will win the popular vote - policies aside, his message has been more positive than Bush these past few weeks. As for the EC, I don’t know.
Just stopped by Clearwater Courthouse to try and vote there. Line was about 1 hour long, so I balked. Second time today. I just think that if the lines are moving slowly then the less motivated voters might not stick out the wait. Especially if they can’t wait inside and the temps are pushing 90 and humid like today. Tomorrow I’m going to my regular precinct just before 7 am and wait for them to open. We’ll see how it goes here.
Just wanted to add, Mrs. Shibb called another of the early voting places. Four hour waits right now; even worse over the weekend (the persons she spoke with called it “a zoo”). I’m concerned about how this will play out tomorrow.
The wait was three hours for downtown St. Pete. I delayed till tomorrow as well, hoping for shorter lines, but I’ll deffinatly bring a book and a sandwich along just in case.
That said, I think election planners in FL simply didn’t predict the huge numbers of people that would turn out for early voting and as such didn’t provide enough sites. Tomorrow should be different, as they’ve no doubt anticipated larger then normal turnout for Nov. 2 and will also have the added benefit of having a lot of people taken care of already by the early voting.
Reagardless, Next year I’m diffinately voting via absentee ballot.
And SPR == Stratigic Petroleom Reserve, ie Kerry would open the Reserve to depress oil prices.
You might want to consider the “stupid early” option that I plan to pursue. Of course I’m normally up at some ogawful hour, so it’s not a big problem for me. If not, bring a long book and a couple of extra sandwiches. Maybe you can make a little extra money.
FWIW, I didn’t consider the absentee option since they seem to be more prone to screw ups and rejection. They offered me an absentee ballot at the courthouse today and I declined.
If we could post entire articles here without consequence, I would have. Just gotta suck it up and click the link sometimes, though.
The point was that Bush has been energetically buying oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (in preparation for an extended war?) with the obvious effect on oil prices, while the speculators expect Kerry to let more oil stay on the open market.