Presidential Election Poll 10-2-2012

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Obama Leads 2-1 Among Early Voters: Reuters/Ipsos poll
The accuracy of Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. For the 6,704 people who were asked whether they had voted yet, the credibility interval was 1.3 points. For the 361 people who replied that they had already cast their ballots, the credibility interval was 10 points
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A commentator, fishskicanoe1, says
While the Ipsos poll doesn’t seem to have asked the question of how the early voters in Ohio are breaking two other polls have. With about 18% of the 2008 electorate having already voted. NBC has them brealking 63-37 for Obama and PPP has them breaking 76-24! This means that Romney would have to beat Obama with the remaining voters by over 12%. Probably not going to happen
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Early Vote Continues to Trend Republican

Campaigns claim edge in registrations, early voting efforts
The Romney campaign shot back that they have slight leads or are even with Obama in early voting or absentee balloting in four battleground states — Nevada, Florida, Colorado and New Hampshire. Romney holds a 25% lead in absentee balloting in North Carolina.
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“Our early vote numbers are outperforming voter registration in battleground states, demonstrating the strength of our ground game and the excitement for the Romney-Ryan ticket,” said Rich Beeson, Romney’s political director. “Not only are we keeping pace with the vaunted Obama machine, but we believe our ground game will put us over the finish line on Election Day.”
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Totally different reports
 
Poll: Nearly Fifth in Ohio Have Already Voted
A survey released Saturday by the Democratic pollster-founded Public Policy Polling said that 19 percent of respondents in Ohio have already cast their votes for president in early balloting.
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Out of those who have voted early, 76 say they voted for President Obama compared to 24 percent for Mitt Romney. Of those who have not voted yet, Romney has a 51-45 advantage.
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Knowing PPP would have something wacky, I decided to cut right down to the most absurd point highlighted by the firm: 19% of respondents have already voted and they are breaking 3-1 Obama. That seems to spell certain doom for Romney.
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Is it actually true? Have just under a fifth of Ohio voters actually voted?
Facts tend to get in the way of such fantasies.
Cuyahoga county (Largest County in the State, overwhelmingly Democrat).
Total registered voters: 928,798 (which, FTR, is down over 180,000 from 2008, and with the registration deadline past in the state, it won’t climb from here).
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Of this total, 229,794 have requested absentee ballots.
Of this total, 31,233 have returned them, 13.59% of the total requested. Red flag #1.
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That total requested accounts for a third of the total number of votes counted in 2008. So fractions of fractions now. Red flag #2.
Assuming lower turnout of 670,000 (closer to 2008 which ironically had fewer votes than 2004), that 31,233 drops to less than 5% of the total vote from the largest county in Ohio. A base county for President Obama and the Democrats. A core part of his Early Vote strategy.
Sure, its just one county, but it is also one of the most Democratic (and as the press meme is going, they have the advantage here), one of the more enthusiastic on voting, and will account for 1 in every 9 ballots cast in Ohio. If we were seeing the levels claimed, we would see it here, and we aren’t. Flag #3.
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But what about In-Person voting?
Statewide, about 60,000 Ohioans (out of around 8million registered) have voted in-person.
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If we are to believe the hype that 18 to 19% of Ohians have already voted as per the surveys from Marist and PPP are claiming, where are the voters? If the Democrats are turning their ballots back in droves, where the hell are they?
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Per the SOS’ own press release, 1.1 million voters have requested (not submitted, as we see above, that is not the case at all) absentee ballots, and 59,000 have voted in-person. That totals to just around 20% of the 2004/2008 total vote, so on it’s face the 18/19% statistic being bounced around and “found” by polling firms like Public Policy Polling could be true, except for two things: counties are still mailing out these requested ballots so it is impossible for those voters to have sent them back; and on the county level the return rate yields a number in the mid-single digits, if that. A third of what PPP and Marist’s respondents are claiming.
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The smaller the # of respondents for a given question/sub-question, the higher the margin of error. It is how you can wind up with polls giving a Republican 45% of the black vote: if that sample size out of the larger polled group is small, wackiness can ensue. It is why ultimately these subsamples need to be taken with a grain of salt, and not paraded about as significant when the actual numbers on the ground don’t match up.
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Anyone saying the race is over based on “19% said they already did and PPP said they are breaking 76-24 Obama ELEVENTY OMGZ!” is trolling, and on a very pedestrian level. Want to know how many people have voted? Check the counties themselves, or better yet, for a more concentrated spot of information, check out ningrim’s spreadsheet here (requests only).
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Beyond the usual smattering of poll junkies and politicos who will gobble and ooze with delight over garbage, any pollster hyping the statistic is either ignorant of the actual statistical numbers reported or they are deliberately pushing a very, very steamy pile.
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But nobody would push something that obviously isn’t true. That would be the work of a hack, not a reputable pollster.
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Poll: Presidential race close in Arizona

Watch Out for Phony Early Vote Numbers in Ohio
For Ohio’s actual figures we’ll use the US Elections Project at George Mason University which is updated through today (October 14). Note: Ohio’s #s are kept up by our own blog-friend ningrim:
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  1. *]256,915 absentee votes cast absentee thus far
    *]59,353 have cast in-person votes according to the Secretary of State
    *]This totals 316,268 votes cast
    *]The aggregate vote total for Ohio in 2008 was 5,721,374
    *]316, 268 divided by 5,721,374 equals 0.055 or 5.5%
    *]Therefore the laws of mathematics say 5.5% of votes have been cast in Ohio using early voting simply based on the 2008 turnout. The percentage goes lower if we assume a rejuvenated GOP or increased turnout from Team Obama micro-targeting.
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  1. This is far, far, far from the 19% or 20% figure being bandied about by PPP, NBC, the Wall Street Journal and LA Times among others.
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    Obama +2 in Colorado — Gravis Marketing
 
I think it’s too early to make any confident predictions (one way or the other), but I will say this, since these threads have included discussions about the basis for voting for this, that, or the other person:

Every practicing, believing Catholic who does not view his conscience as some independent entity apart from the Magisterium, and who is still open to approaching voting decisions in harmony with Catholic teaching, should avail himself of the recording of last week’s EWTN Roundtable, hosted by Colin Donovan. Normally this is repeated at least a couple of times on TV the following week, but this evening I happened to hear it on radio. Guests on the panel included Fr. Mitch Pacwa and lay apologist Tom Nash.

Mind you, as always, the Catholic Church takes no official position with regard to candidates, politically. Nor did the show do so. Rather, the discussion centered on Catholic principles (grave moral principles) and on the responsibility of voting in accordance with those principles. It included elaboration on some topics that have been discussed on CAF, such as the prudential judgment of voting for neither of two major candidates. (Sometimes known as “a protest vote.”) Conditions supporting the use of a protest vote as a valid moral option were briefly referred to.

Also discussed were the issues of Mormonism, and the heresies of the UCC (Obama’s stated religion).

This show is not to be missed, as it prioritizes for any sincere Catholic the process of decision making according to the absolute principles of Catholic moral theology. Some posters on this forum need to understand that a “voting pamphlet” or “voter’s guide,” issued by the Church or by the bishops representing the Church, is the equivalent of a sound-bite when it comes to Catholic moral theology, and how the individual Catholic is enjoined to make decisions. Removing a phrase here or there, from a voter’s guide, to justify a decision which falls outside of Catholic prioritized principles, is not the intent which the Bishops had in mind when publishing that. It’s a summary, and unfortunately too many consider the summary reductively, and not expansively, as it was meant to be read and understood.

This show provides some context, and I do expect additional airings in the next few days.
 
 
scipio337 said:
I too take an “ends justify the means” approach, but live in a highly contentious swing state (MO). I might take a protest vote stance if I lived in a locked in Blue or Red state.

I vote for the person who will do the most good, and is electable. There is no “ends” if your candidate doesn’t win.
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Thanks for your feedback. I find it troubling that only one person is addressing the issue of “the ends justifying the means”. I hope others will chime in. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to judge that most Catholics think all bets are off when it comes to politics, but not in personal life. 🤷
 
anilorak13ska said:
Thanks for your feedback. I find it troubling that only one person is addressing the issue of “the ends justifying the means”. I hope others will chime in. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to judge that most Catholics think all bets are off when it comes to politics, but not in personal life. 🤷
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Well, I suppose I could look at it another way. Chances of winning is something to consider. From there, I consider who would “Do the most good” or at least “Do the least harm”

I consider it a moral decision when choosing between the two who have the most chance to win. I’m not crazy about only having a two party system, but we live in a fallen world, and short of running for President myself, try to do the best I can in choosing a candidate, and guided by faith. 😃
 
scipio337 said:
Well, I suppose I could look at it another way. Chances of winning is something to consider. From there, I consider who would “Do the most good” or at least “Do the least harm”

I consider it a moral decision when choosing between the two who have the most chance to win. I’m not crazy about only having a two party system, but we live in a fallen world, and short of running for President myself, try to do the best I can in choosing a candidate, and guided by faith. 😃
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You’d have my vote. 👍
 
He_Man said:
LOL, third parties never win.
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Not in the biggies in this election, that’s for sure.

You’d have to go pretty far down the list in certain states like Vermont for that to happen. Even Minnesota’s Independence Party and the Libertarians in Missouri won’t be getting much this year.

Even candidates with low approval ratings are going down to the wire it seems.
 
From the Washington Examiner:President Obama’s campaign once again attacked the methodology of Gallup just days after the polling group adjusted their methodology in a way that benefited the president.

This time, the criticism came this time from the Obama pollster who mocked the Romney team for debating about the reliability of polls.

After Gallup/USA Today released a poll showing Mitt Romney tied with Obama among likely female voters in swing states, Obama pollster Joel Benenson pointed to “deep flaws in Gallup’s likely voter screen” and dismissed the survey as an “extreme outlier.”
The trouble is that they only seem to complain when the data doesn’t agree with them.

OF course, you Obama supporters need to remember that the only poll that matters is the one on November 7th.
 
Again (in regard to 3rd party voting, etc., above), it would be helpful to listen to a re-broadcast of the last week’s EWTN Roundtable, which will probably re-air twice this week.

An often overlooked aspect to Catholic Moral Theology was that brought up by Colin Donovan, who mentioned the Catholic’s obligation to work affirmatively to overcome “structures of sin” in political outcomes. He elaborated further: When one or another party (or several) is so comprehensively and one-sidedly immoral in its agenda or platform, such that becoming identified with that Party requires one to go along with an entire set of approved social behaviors unequivocally endorsed by that Party and the Party’s preferred candidate(s), then the Catholic is obliged to work actively against such homogeneous positions, lest that voter’s passivity or disengagement with the process advances a moral decline even further. When one party or candidate presents such a danger, the Chrisitan response is activity against that inevitable decline, not withdrawal in the face of it.

He contrasted this more recent trend of monolithic political parties ^ with what is historically verifiable as diverse positions on social issues, both in Democratic and in Republican Parties. Not very long ago one could identify Conservative, Moderate, and Liberal Democrats, variously, and ditto for Republicans. For one thing, it was never necessary to agree unanimously on an extreme platform because it was not assumed that the Federal Government was in the business of supporting national (im)moral agendas. Differences in social issues were left to States to decide, and to local courts where those could not be resolved. The Federal Gov’t has assumed an increasingly heavy and monolithic role in the lives of the U.S. citizen, and has presumed that Americans want that and need that.

(The principle of subsidiarity was also discussed in some depth, by Fr. Mitch Pacwa.)
 
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