California Mail Ballots Go Out This Week

The AP put out a story on January 6, 2008, pointing out that mail-in ballots go out this coming week in California. The article also points out that not all the candidates are poised to take advantage of that fact. This is from the article:

Only better-funded campaigns have been able to assemble significant organizations aimed at influencing voters.

Volunteers for Democrats Barack Obama and Clinton, for example, have made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to potential supporters. Republican Rudy Giuliani has a paid staff of about 20 in California, directing its volunteers and phone banks, while Mitt Romney has a paid staff of four.

According to the article some four million California voters are enrolled as "permanent absentee voters" which means that they automatically receive their absentee ballots. In 2004 about 33% of all California ballots cast in the November election were absentee. In 2008 the article said that some election experts believe that over 50% of all of California voters will cast an absentee ballot in the November election.

Of course, California is not the only state where such voting is taking place. This is from the article:

Residents of 11 states — Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina and Utah — have been able to vote by mail for their favorite candidates since December.

The first was Michigan, where absentee ballots were made available Dec. 1 for the Jan. 15 primary.

It is extremely probable that more voters will have voted by absentee ballot by January 8, 2008, the date of the New Hampshire primary than either voted or took part in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. Of course, since the elections won't take place until later there is no way of knowing who is winning those votes.

It could be Obama because of the media attention he is getting from his win in Iowa; it could be Hillary because absentee voters tend to be older, and her best demographic is voters over 65; or it could be Edwards if the unions supporting him are encouraging their members to vote absentee.

Since nothing is happening publicly, the media tends to ignore the fact that this voting is occurring. The candidates are not, though, and you can bet that the struggle for these votes is intense.