| I have just looked at a file of absentee ballots requested and returned in Michigan for the January 15 election. Although absentee voters aren’t completely representative, I work with the data I have, rather than the data I’d like to have. (Apologies to former Secretary Rumsfeld.)
UPDATE – 1-15-08 – Been looking at actual counts of ballots returned by municipality, and I think I’ve been guessing too high a turnout. The Democratic percentage remains stubbornly high, but I’m beginning to think the Republican turnout won’t be as high as 900,000. It’s foolish to update my guess, because I always discover after the election that my best guess was made 4 weeks out, and my last-minute adjustments are always in the wrong direction. But I can’t help myself. So, my final guess: 750,000 Republicans, 600,000 Dems. Wrong, wrong, wrong. |
| Grebner :: Straws in the wind – the early voting in Michigan |
| Not all local Clerks use the State’s system for handling absentee ballots, so my data only reflects about 75% of the population. As of today, they’ve issued 260,000 ballots, and received about 120,000 returns. Guessing how many will be requested and returned in the remaining twelve days, and assuming 20% of the ballots are in areas not covered by my file, I estimate there will be about 350,000 absentee ballots cast. If absentees make up 25% of the total, we would expect 1.4 million total voters, slightly below my previous guesses. More interestingly, the partisan distribution is much more Democratic than I would have guessed. On my firm’s master file, we have coded the average registered voter in Michigan about 52% Democratic, while the people requesting ballots are about 51% Democratic – virtually the same.
I think some of those Democrats are casting ballots in the Republican primary, but not very many, at least among absentee voters. On one hand, the lack of competition and the effects of the DNC sanctions must be discouraging Democratic turnout, but that reduction must be offset by the greater enthusiasm and more interesting race on the Democratic side. Counting the Democratic crossover, I guess about 55 or 57% of the turnout will be in the Republican primary. I will post updates to reflect additional information as I discover it. |