Exit polls, as well as preliminary state returns on
Election Day, could be inaccurate due to the huge
number of people using early and absentee voting.
The massive number of voters selecting their next
president through absentee and early voting could
make it difficult to forecast preliminary results
out Tuesday evening. Some political observers predict early and absentee
voters will make up about 30 percent of the total
votes on Election Day -- which could approach a
record 130 million to 140 million.
And state-by-state statistics consistently show
Democrats dominating Republicans in early turnout.
That means exit polls based on Tuesday-only voting
could trend more toward John McCain over Barack Obama.
"The Election Day vote tends to be more Democratic in
the past. This election looks like we're going to flip
that around, and I think we have to really be careful
in how we interpret those numbers," said Michael
McDonald of George Mason University.
"I just hate the exit polls being used to declare winners,"
said Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of
the American Electorate at American University. And this
year is no different, he said.
"In this particular case, we may have some inaccuracies,"
Gans said.
The McCain campaign concurred that exit polling could be
inaccurate -- but warned that it historically trends
Democratic and issued a call to "discourage a rush to
judgment based on the exit polls."
While exit polls could skew the story one way, early
tabulations released by states that allowed early
voting could trend the other. Since some states could
have early and absentee votes tallied before their
Election Day results in hand, whoever won early
get-out-the-vote efforts will end up in good shape
soon after the close of polls.
"We may see margins quickly pile up for Obama in
some (early voting) states," McDonald said.
This might not matter in tiny, predictable states like
Arkansas or Vermont. But critical battlegrounds like
Florida, Ohio and North Carolina have seen hundreds
of thousands of residents come out for early voting.
In North Carolina, more than 2.5 million people
participated in early and absentee voting -- and
Democrats outnumbered Republicans by nearly 2-to-1.
In Florida, more than 4 million voters used those
forms of voting -- 2.6 million people participated
in early voting alone. Registered Democrats held
about an 8-point advantage over registered Republicans
in that turnout.
However, polls from those states don't show Obama running
away with the election.
Rather, early voting figures suggest McCain's prediction
that voters are in for a late night may come true.
Gans said the big question is whether the states are
prepared to have a comprehensive count of absentee and
early votes ready on Election Day.
Election experts have a hard time gauging whether early
voting programs, which are used in more than 30 states,
are responsible for high turnout this year. Gans said
enthusiasm more than anything seems responsible for high
turnout.
Either way, turnout on Tuesday could be historic, once all
the figures are tallied.
In terms of the sheer number of votes, the record was set
in 2004 when 122 million people voted.
The highest turnout percentage of the past two centuries
was set in 1908, when 66 percent turned out for the general
election. The next highest was set in 1960, when 64 percent
turned out.
Experts predict Tuesday's numbers could at least represent
the highest turnout percentage since 1960.
"I think we're going to get close to that," McDonald said.
"I think we have a good chance" of eclipsing the 1960 turnout
percentage.
Kay Stimson, spokeswoman with the National Association of
Secretaries of State, said some individual states are even
predicting turnout "as high as 80 percent."
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