NYT appears to have false info about Florida early voting.

[madfloridian]

Here is the portion I question, and I would like to know where they got the information.

More Democrats Casting Early Ballots, Data Show

Significantly more Democrats than Republicans have cast ballots at this early stage in Iowa, North Carolina, New Mexico and Ohio, according to data analyzed by The New York Times.

Information from counties representing more than 90 percent of Nevada’s population show Democrats also holding a commanding advantage in early voter turnout.

In Florida, however, Republicans appear to hold the upper hand, while in Colorado, early voting is about evenly split among Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Bush won all those states in 2004.

That is not true. Here are the percentages from early voting in Florida on Monday, the same day the same day as the NYT reference.

Democrats winning nearly 2-1 on early votes in Florida

And a link to Adam Smith's blog at TBO...The Buzz

Democrats winning nearly 2-1 on early votes

Democrats winning nearly 2-1 on early votes
Early vote totals from day one: 81,828 by Democrats; 42,789 by Republicans; 21,124 by others. Of the nealy 146,000 votes cast, 56% were by Democrats, 29% by Republicans, and 14% other. (Note: Polk County results not yet in.)

At this in '04, 20,751 Democrats had voted, 19,431 Republicans, and 5,827 other.

In Polk County about 3200 voted, not enough to change the percentages from the Adam Smith column.


Graph courtesy of kansasr diary at Daily Kos

[Hamlette]

1. Nate has an explanation of how they got it wrong in Florida

(By the way, the New York Times' data on Florida is wrong, as it includes absentee ballot requests as well as early voters. According to an Open Left diarist, Democrats have a 24-point advantage among those who have actually voted early in Florida).

[madfloridian]

2. Nate who?

?

[FreeState]

5. Nate is the statistician from

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

[madfloridian]

6. Well, what he and Adam Smith have are only 2 points apart.

See my graph. So the SP Times was right about the % of early voting.

[Hamlette]

9. yes, Nate agrees with your model

and says where the NYTimes got it wrong was they combined early voting with absentee ballot requests which is not a good way to measure it.

[Essene]

3. NYTimes was talking historical trends, that's all... relax =D

I believe the military presence in FL has historically caused early voting and absentee voting to lean GOP, but this year we're seeing the opposite (although i think more registered republicans requested absentee ballots i wouldnt bank on that meaning they all vote mccain)

[madfloridian]

7. The NYT was not making that clear.

And so their info about FL was not true.

[BzaDem]

4. NYT included absentee ballots, which Republicans always have the upper hand in.

[TrogL]

8. Are they actually counting the ballots now or is this based on exit-polling?