Word: turnout
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With Election Day about almost two weeks away, Barack Obama's and John McCain's volunteers are going door-to-door, looking to secure each and every vote in key battleground states and insure a big turnout of their faithful. Their presidential campaigns are busy strategizing about where to focus their resources, which homes and voters they should be targeted. Well, a new study suggests there is one key indicator that they might be overlooking, and it has nothing to do with politics. As the candidates battle it out on the campaign trail and on the airwaves, they might want...
...nation's estimated 26.4 million voting-age blacks are crucial to Obama's success. Black voter turnout in the Democratic primaries soared some 115% above 2004 levels, according to an analysis by the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which examines black issues. A record 70% of eligible black voters are expected to participate in the 2008 presidential election, a 20% increase from 2004. But the true test lies in battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia, where blacks comprise a significant portion of the electorate. In Florida, for instance, blacks' share of the electorate is expected...
...distributing flyers in salons and barbershops with large black clienteles. Rick Wade, the Obama campaign's senior adviser for black affairs, says simply, "African Americans are a crucial part of the Democratic base. They know what's at stake during the general election. We expect to see a tremendous turnout...
...quadrennial issue. Every presidential election finds college students wading through a swamp of murky laws and logistical hurdles to get into the polling booths. But this year, amid students' record interest - and record primary turnout - experts say many campus precincts are sorely unprepared to meet student demand. And laws passed after the 2004 election, ostensibly to clamp down on voter fraud, could cause a slew of new problems that disproportionately hit student voters. Which means the question in 2008 isn't whether young voters deliver. "It's can the young voters deliver?" says Matthew Segal, executive director of the Student...
...Because local officials have wide latitude in interpreting election laws that vary from state to state, misunderstandings - or misinformation - could have an even greater impact this year than in 2004, given the anticipated bulge in student turnout. Most of the trouble comes from nailing down where college students should be counted as residents if they attend school in one state but go home to another during the holidays. The Supreme Court's position is clear: a 1979 ruling found that all students have the right to vote where they attend college. But local officials often make students travel a rocky...