Can someone put these new registered voter %'s in actual numbers

[Quixote1818]

Someone just posted that in Ohio Democratic registration is up 250% while Republican registration is only up 25%. I heard similar numbers in Florida. Are we talking a few thousand or are we talking tens of thousands or are we talking over 100,000 new voters?

For example if in 2000 Democrats registered 2,000 new voters and that number is up by 250% that would come to only 6,500 new Democrats. However if the number in 2,000 was like 25,000 that would mean their are another 87,000 new democrats.

Please tell me it's a it was a big number in 2000!

[clydefrand]

1. Read this for the answers to your questions.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040926/ts_alt_afp/us_vote_registration

[featherman]

2. A good question but unfortunately hard to piece together

Generally states have voter rosters on their .gov websites somewhere but you have to dig to get comparison numbers. Three that I have looked at recently only have data up to June of 2000, missing most new registration. These bureaucracies are notoriously slow and inefficient in getting their numbers out to the public.

[Quixote1818]

3. Can you give me a good guess?

[featherman]

4. I can give an example from Oregon Secretary of State stats

In August 2000 there were about 60,000 more DEMS statewide in Oregon than GOPS. Didn't write down exact numbers but about:
DEM 730,000 (52.14% of two party RV)
GOP 670,000 (47.86% of two party RV)
(INDS/Other not counted for this equation)

By the November election, both parties had added another 23,000 voters or so, an increase of about 3%
So, I guess, if this is a norm (equal numbers registering each party for about 3% increase in each total), then anything better than that is a good thing.

Using the Ohio model of 25% increase in GOP versus 250% incrrease in DEM
you would get 28,750 new GOP versus 57,500 new DEM
Bringing the new totals to:
DEM - 787,500 (52.98% of two party RV)
GOP - 698,750 (47.02% of two party RV)

So all in all, it is great but not decisive in itslef. DEM RV's move from about +4% margin to about +6%. It is still all about turnout, turnout and more turnout.

[Quixote1818]

5. If this is true I predict we take Florida, Nevada and New Hampshire

simply based on how close things were in the last election. Ohio, Arkansas, Arizona, Missouri, West Virginia and Colorado would need a larger % of the vote going to Kerry than simply new voters.
We lost Arizona by about 100,000
We lost Arkansas by about 50,000
We lost Colorado by about 140,000
We lost Florida by about 500
We lost Missouri by about 70,000
We lost Nevada by only 20,000
We lost New Hampshire by only 7,000
We lost Ohio by 150,000
We lost West Virginia by about 40,000

[featherman]

6. not quite so simple

-Don't forget that this is just the two party percentages. Nevada, Oregon, and New Hampshire for example have high rates of INDS. How they break is a key. Most figures I have seen favor Kerry by 2-6% but not sure about Ohio especially as v. 2000 split.

-Incidently, in 2000 Ohio the combined Gore/Nader lost to the combined Bush/Buchanan by only about 75000. Nader got about 117,000 votes (2.5%). Drop that to 1.5% and you gain 70,200 votes for the two party.
At a 3-1 split for Kerry this adds about 30,000 difference.

Unfortunately I can't locate the actual DEM/GOP RV's. So let's use the 2000 vote and posit that the split is about the same as Oregon. Since total RV's is 5 times as many as Oregon (over 7,500,000), then using the Oregon figures above this registration drive may account for about 144,000 new GOP and 287,000 new DEMS. This is a gain of 143,000 plus the Nader vote gain (30,000) minus the Buchanan vote going all to Bush (26,000) for a gain of 147,000 votes for Kerry.

BUT we then need to assume that all of the above voters will turn out. Not likely but as new voters and Nader/Buchanan 2000 voters is is likely that greater than the 60% avg WILL vote. Probably leaves us about 40,000 short of flipping OH.

Finally, just guessing at the DEM RV% by positing 39% of total RV's, we come up with 2,925,000 DEMS. Every increase of 1% in DEM turnout would equal about 30,000 votes.

So it is all about turnout and at least keeping or increasing our of share of the the IND vote.