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Home Front: Politix
Ohio: New-Voter Challenges ok after all (23,000+ in play)
2004-11-02
Ruling early this morning, a divided federal court of appeals handed Republicans a potentially significant election day legal victory in this fiercely contested state, clearing the way for the party to challenge thousands of newly registered voters. The decision by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals could affect at least 23,000 newly registered Ohio residents whose qualifications Republicans have sought to challenge.

The ruling upheld Ohio's law on voter challenges. It came less than six hours before the 6:30 a.m. scheduled opening of polls here and capped nearly 24 hours of frenzied litigation that had left election officials uncertain of how they would proceed. "The ball keeps bouncing up and down. We'll do the best we can," said John M. Williams, director of the board of elections in Hamilton County, Ohio's third-most populous county.

Republican Party officials have recruited about 3,500 challengers, many of them lawyers, to go to polling places around the state and question the validity of new voter registrations, particularly in heavily Democratic regions. The Republicans allege that many of the new registrations are fraudulent, saying that names such as Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy appear on the registration lists. Democratic leaders deny that any systematic fraud has taken place.
Posted by:trailing wife

#2  Assuming the independent vote will be split 50/50, the election will turn on which candidate can draw more defections from the other side's registered voters. The best indicator of this is the % of each party's registereds who "strongly support" their guy. For Bush, it's 90% of repubs. For Kerry, it's only 70%. In other words, only 10% of registered, solid Repubs are poachable by Kerry but 30% of registered Dems are poachable by Bush.

These split-ticket voters will determine the margin of victory. Game over. Bush by at 5 points in the popular vote.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-02 12:16:22 PM  

#1  The polls are unreliable. So is the Dem claim that their new sign-ups will tip the balance oto Kerry. In fact, the Dems traditionally fall on their faces when it comes to turning out the vote. For twenty years we've been hearing that this is truly the big year for Democratic registration and turnout efforts. And yet, every election season, the Republican effort among white evangelicals bests the Dem effort among african-americans, often by as much as 2 to 1.

Despite the MSM's BS about the deep hatred of Bush that lurks in the heart of every American who's not a gun-toting fundamentalist, Republicans since 1980 have been far better organized than Dems and this organizational advantage shows up especially in national elections. It's a very tall hill that the Dems' turnout specialists have to climb.

Ah, my pro-Kerry friends say, this year's different! It's all about BUSH! People really hate him!

Perhaps, but do the numbers add up? We're told that there have been an additional 10 million new registrations this year as compared to 2000.
Now, the target demographic groups for new registrations and increased turnout are, for Dems, 1) african-americans, 2) kids (under 25), and 3) hispanics. For Repubs, the target groups are fundamentalists for the most part and to a lesser extent, certain hispanics disposed favorably toward Republicans (cubans) or the Bush family (variety of hispanics in FL and TX). Rove expects to turn out an additional 3+ million fundamentalists. Perhaps they'll turn out as much as a million or more from other demographics. So assume that 3.5-4 million of the 10 million are solidly pro-Bush.

How many of the remainder will be pro-Kerry? By my calculations, not more than 65-70%, which means best case 4 million for Kerry, leaving an additional 1.5-2 million for Bush (the balance go to Nader).

African-american support for Bush this year will be between 12-19%, as opposed to only 9% in 2000. So assume 85% of the african-american new registrants go for Kerry. Now, it's very unlikely that more than 60% of the newly-registered kids and hispanics will vote for Kerry. Kids today are probably the most pro-war age demographic, and hispanics remain the great mystery group. Neither party has figured them out. So all in all, perhaps 65-70% of the 6 million or so Dem registrants go for Kerry and nearly all the remainder go to Bush. In sum, Bush gets 3.5 + 1.5 = at least 5 million of the 10 million new registrants.

So, as in the 1980s and 1990s, we can expect the Republicans yet again to derive at least as much if not more benefit than the Dems from increased turnout.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-02 12:15:17 PM  

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