#Obama #Romney Early Voting for #Dummies simple #Math explanation of #Ohio Absentee Ballot and Early Voters

Early Voting for Dummies

No offense intended, but trying to read stories from NBC, Time and other 
"experts"  can drive  you insane trying to understand. Here I will try  and 
make it much easier to  understand,  and I will use for my example a very 
important election state. I'll start with this simple summary

Ohio Absentee Ballot and Early Voters are trending to be

about 1,000,000  votes, that will leave about 4,500,000  

remaining Ohio voters on election  day. If the current trend 

continues it will account for an early lead of  Obama 570,000 

to Romney 430,000 (-140,000). To tie remaining voters  would 

need to be Romney 51.56% and Obama  48.44%

To give some perspective, in 2008 Obama beat McCain in early voting by about 280,000 votes, about twice as many as this year, and at the end of the election night, Obama won by 207,000 votes. That shows me the first amazing fact, on election night, exuding the early voting, McCain actually won Ohio. Of course he didn't win but he definitely got a net +73000 more votes

Using this years early voting and still assuming same voter turnout in Ohio as 2008, it would mean Obama would only win by (140,000-73000=67000) a mere 67,000 voters, Now considering about 4.5M people will be voting on Nov 6, 2012 this means the race is going to be really really close.

Now I won't even calculate the meaning of this, but I want to mention. It is estimated that younf voters, 18-29 will turnout 20% less than 2007 and they voted 2-1 Obama, and accounted for about 18% of all voters, and will probably turn out at about 15% this year

So I left off I had estimated that Obama would win Ohio by 67,000 votes if indeed the voters turned out exactly as they did in 2008, but as we all know they won't, but here are some numbers to think about. In 2008, the democratic voter base was abnormally excited and turned out at a higher rate that most years. I have seen estimates all over the place, but just for example lets say its 3 percent less. Pew, Gallup and Rasmussen are all reporting that this is about half the value of 2008, and looking at the Ohio absentee is about half, and in 2008 the election was won by 7%, so I think 3% less is fair.... Three percent of 4.5m expected voters would be 135,000 extra republican votes (135,000-67,000=68000). now it appears we have Romney potentially leading by 68,000 votes

Now I won't even calculate this either, but another thing for you to think about, and that is that Obama had 750M to spend McCain had half of that, and actually nothing the last 8 weeks. At a minimum Romney and Obama have about the same amount to spend the last few weeks

Another thing to think about that I will not calculate, but worth noting as that across the country  Obama won the election by 7% and in Ohio Obama won by 4%, so it would logical to expect that the republican candidate might do a little bit better than the average seen across the country 

 Lastly and I am not sure how to even calculate it, but thought I would end with it. In 2007 the excitement level for Obama was 96, about the highest it has ever been. McCain conversly had an excitement level of 58. This time the excitement level for both candidates is virtually tied about 93% each. So... not that I am correct, nor can anyone really know, but it almost looks like, no matter what the polls say, Romney might just surprise everyone and win Ohio... Wouldn't that shock just about everyone.....

Tweet me @perfectsliders if you have any suggestions for my math