So what's the actual story about early voting?

[LAS14]

For the past couple of days I've seen glee on DU about numbers of early voting. But I just heard on ABC news that it's 40% below 2012 at this point. Any insights?

[MADem]

1. I have brought DOZENS of people to early voting in the last three days.

I early voted myself yesterday.

If this keeps up, I won't have any of my "regulars" to bring to the polls (I make it a habit to drive people to the polls--one year, I was at it for over eight hours straight).

[Blue_Roses]

7. That's awesome!

[LisaL]

2. I don't know what you heard on ABC.

Were they talking about a specific state or a county?
Because overall numbers are higher compared to 2012, not lower.

"Early voting, via mail or in-person, is underway in 37 states. More than 13.4 million votes have been cast, far higher than the rate in 2012, according to Associated Press data. In all, more than 46 million people –or as much as 40 percent of the electorate — are expected to vote before Election Day, Nov. 8."

http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/oct/27/early-voting-more-good-signs-for-clinton-in-key-states/

[Blue_Roses]

5. Exactly.

Same here in Texas

[LAS14]

12. It was one of those one line "reports" between...

... commercials. I don't usually watch, but I needed some noise and had heard the CNN cycle. I was thinking earlier how annoying it is when news stories report poll results and don't tell which poll they're reporting.

[wishstar]

3. Fewer polling places have been open early so far than there were in 2012 in NC

Due to Republican states using voter suppression tactic of limiting access to early voting, for example shortening access from 17 to 10 days.

For instance in some large counties in NC with high minority populations, there were over 20 polling places opened for 17 days in 2012, but this year some entire counties have had only one site open for the first 7 days. Good news though is that early voting has been unexpectedly high considering that there are fewer sites available so far.

In NC great news is that all NC counties will have many sites (even more than in 2012) beginning today for 10 days including weekend days, so early vote totals will be surging from now on.

[LisaL]

6. Even with fewer polling places in some states, overall numbers are higher than 2012, not lower.

[Blue_Roses]

4. Not sure where they are getting these numbers but

here in Texas, early voting in Dallas, Houston and Ft. Worth are way up. In fact, many counties have surpassed 2012 early voting.

[blowback]

8. The ABC segment was about Ohio where early voting numbers are down (eom)

[triron]

9. What's going on with Ohio?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. Ohio started later in early voting compared to 2012.

I'm also guessing that African American voting is down compared to 2012, but I'm not sure. Cuyahoga County supposedly didn't have the same level of strong turnout this time.

In polls that I've seen, Trump is doing worse among white voters compared to Romney, so maybe that will help?

[blowback]

11. Here's a local article from earlier today

http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/10/early_vote_numbers_in_ohio_sug.html

[LAS14]

13. Huh. I missed that bit. Thanks!