Florida's Republicans cut early voting from 15 to 8 days, reduced early voting hours and eliminated early voting on the Sunday before the election. In response, the Obama campaign is now promoting in-person absentee voting, until early voting officially begins.

“We very much like what we’re seeing in terms of absentee requests,” said David Plouffe [snip] The Republicans lead Democrats when it comes to absentee votes cast, about 126,000 to 114,000. In percentage terms, Republicans lead Democrats 44-40 percent. [snip] Despite all the positive trends for them, Republicans are a little nervous. They’ve always out-organized and outvoted Democrats by absentee ballots — usually by big margins. But no more.

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“It’s not good news for Republicans,” said Brad Gomez, a political science professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, who studies voter turnout. [snip] The Obama campaign has 102 offices, up from 58 in Florida four years ago, and has registered about 320,000 new voters, up from about 200,000 in 2008 [snip] Republicans have signed up about 49,000 new voters in Florida, state data show, and have 47 offices for the presidential campaign

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Vote Now! at 100-years old

By Abigail on October 14, 2012

http://www.barackobama.com/... To celebrate her 100th birthday, Isabel asked for a special present: Could someone take her to the polls to vote for President Obama in this election?



Isabel knew she would have trouble standing on a long line in the hot sun on Election Day – they don't call it the Sunshine State for nothing – but she was determined to cast her ballot in person. Lucky for her, she learned about the option to Vote Now. Available to Floridians in certain counties, vote now is an easy way to cast your ballot.



[snip]





To learn more about Vote Now and to see if you can vote now where you live, visit: my.barackobama.com/FL-votenow

In 2008, half of all Floridians voted early or by absentee ballot, and Obama beat McCain by about 200,000 total votes. And "4.3 million people cast votes during early voting and absentee balloting; Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost 360,000 among those voters" ( link ). Those 360K votes were thanks to our huge advantage in early voting more than offsetting Republican's advantage in absentee ballots.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sources:1. Miami Herald. October 14. "In politics, polls are important but absentee votes are essential"2. Bloomberg. October 15. "Florida Democrats Cut Traditional Republican Lead"--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------From OFA's Florida blog: