Early Voting Explosion in Georgia, Nevada Favors Dems

It is looking more and more likely that we will see a voting explosion in this election, as voter enthusiasm has reached incredible highs across the country. The Atlanta Journal Constitution is reporting today that approximately 13 percent of Georgia's registered voters have already cast ballot.

About 13 percent of Georgia’s registered voters have cast ballots in the presidential election so far. Each day, the volume of voters grows. On Monday alone, 66,159 people voted throughout the state. That’s double the number who voted the previous Monday. Early votes cast on voting machines, as well as the mailed-in paper ballots won’t be counted until Election Day.

Number of ballots cast by close of business Mon. Oct. 20: 757,666

Total number of registered voters as of Oct. 20: 5,748,838

Early voting turnout: About 13 percent

Number of ballots voted in person: 649,722
Number of mail-in ballots returned: 107,944

Turnout demographics

Black 270,122 35.7 percent
White 459,366 60.6 percent
Asian-Pacific Islander 2,967 .39 percent
Hispanic 3,915 .52 percent
Native American 102 .01 percent
Other 21,194 2.8 percent
Female 424,946 56.1 percent
Male 311,526 41.1 percent

While black turnout was at around 40 percent early on in the process, it has tappered down, but has remained at around 35-36 percent for almost a week, I would estimate. Still, with the state's population at 29 percent, this is a big jump. I have no question that if you they announced the early vote numbers, both Obama and Jim Martin would be winning handily.

This is a big danger for the Republicans because if their base is just a little depressed on November 4 -- say a lot of voters stay home is the polls have McCain down 10 points on the third -- it could propel Martin, and perhaps even Obama to victory.

Georgia is no exception. Nevada too is showing ominous early voting trends for Republicans:

*In Nevada: Nevada journalist Jon Ralston passes along news from Washoe County, Nevada, where Democrats recently overtook the Republicans in terms of a registration advantage. 59% of the ballots that've been returned were requested by Democrats compared to 27% of the total requested by Republicans. Says Ralston: "I am sure the GOP turnout machine is going to kick in any day now."

The big news, like every day this week, was reported late last night by Sun columnist Jon Ralston, who comes in with the early voting numbers. Clark County: 46,824 to 24,163 (56 percent to 29 percent.) That's the Dems with a big lead.

Republicans have slight lead in mail ballots — 6,654-6,199 — but it’s not helping much. Internal numbers in virtually all districts from CD3 on down to Assembly races dramatically favor Democrats.

After three days, early voting and mail ballot turnout combined now exceeds 10 percent of active voters in Clark County.

More from Ralston from his daily report: "Four years ago, the best the Democrats could do was to capture 46 percent of that day's early voters on any given day. This weekend: On Saturday, it was 62 percent; Sunday, it was 58 percent. Contrast that with the GOP numbers from 2004: The worst day the Republicans had was 37 percent of the early vote on any given day. On Saturday, the GOP turnout was 23 percent of the total and Sunday it was 26 percent. Yes, it's only two days. But it's the two days where - besides, perhaps, the final weekend of early voting - there will be the greatest turnout."

For those unfamilar with Nevada, Washoe County is absolutely critical. In 2004, John Kerry narrowly lost en route to losing the state by two percent. If Obama wins the county, in addition to Clark County (Las Vegas), which is a lock, he will win Nevada's five electoral votes. John McCain will not be able to catch him with big votes elsewhere. Obama has also worked very hard in Elko County -- visiting it three times -- which is a place where Democrats typically get a quarter of the vote in national elections. Although small, I would imagine Obama will heavily improve on typical Dem numbers there too on his way to winning the Silver State.

The early voting numbers in these two states give some good evidence of a major enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans. Indeed, in the new NBC/WSJ poll -- the self-proclaimed 'gold standard' of national presidential polls -- released tonight, the data reveals the following:

Obama's voter enthusiasm: excited 52%, satisfied 33%
McCain's voter enthusiasm: excited 26%, satisfied 34%

This all draws a very bad picture for McCain-Palin, and gives more evidence of a possible electoral tidal wave coming on November 4.