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US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: One-third of US voters vote early

The drumbeat to vote early is paying dividends for Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, especially in key battleground states in the South and West where Democrats have cast many more ballots than Republicans — and even in states where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats.

About a third of the US electorate was expected to vote before election day, largely to avoid long lines at the polls.

More than 29 million people in 30 states have already voted, according to partial state and county data provided to The Associated Press and that number was projected to rise to 44 million out of 137 million total votes nationally, according to estimates by Edison Media Research and George Mason University political scientist Michael McDonald.

That would be an early vote of 32 percent of this year’s electorate, up from 22 percent in 2004 and 15 percent in 2000.

So far, Democrats have submitted 1 million more ballots than Republicans, though registration does not always indicate who voters choose for president.

The campaigns heavily promoted early voting, reasoning that if they got their base supporters in the bag before Election Day, they could then concentrate on attracting undecided voters.

Record early voting by Democrats in Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado suggests the Obama campaign has rolled up an early advantage over Republican candidate Senator John McCain.

In Colorado, a toss-up state that chose President George W. Bush twice, Democrats had cast 27,500 more ballots than Republicans by Monday. Nearly 1.6 million out of 3.2 million Colorado voters cast early ballots.

In Florida, a whopping 4.2 million people had already voted, up more than 1 million from four years ago. Democrats cast 1.9 million ballots compared with 1.6 million among Republicans. Waits for early voting topped five hours in some places, and Governor Charlie Crist signed an executive order extending early voting hours to accommodate the masses.

In North Carolina, Democrats cast nearly twice as many early ballots as Republicans, 1.4 million ballots to 780,000. As of Sunday, more than 40 percent of registered voters had already cast ballots, leading election officials to reduce expectations of election day turnout.

Obama, who campaigned in Charlotte on Monday, had reason to expect early voting was breaking his way. Blacks made up 28 percent of that state’s early vote, though they are 21 percent of the population and accounted for just 19 percent of North Carolina’s overall 2004 vote.

In Nevada, 90,000 more Democrats than Republicans voted early in two urban counties, home to 85 percent of the state’s voters.

In Georgia, early voting had tripled since 2004. About 29 percent of the state’s electorate is black, but 35 percent of early voters are black.

“People are not taking any chances. They want to make sure they get that vote in,” said Mary Fitzgerald of North Charleston, South Carolina, who helped her 93-year-old mother complete her absentee ballot last week.

About an hour after voting, Dora Fitzgerald died.

“She said she wanted to stick around long enough to vote for Obama,” Mary Fitzgerald said.

News reports of the deathbed balloting have raised questions about whether an extended voting period could allow some dead people to vote. South Carolina’s attorney general has indicated Fitzgerald’s vote may be reviewed.
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