Huge VR gains by the Democrats in key states

[yesthattom]

From a political mailing list I’m on:

A piece in Sunday’s NYT is encouraging (despite the weirdly non-partisan headline) ...A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows.
The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas.
A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas.While comparable data could not be obtained for other swing states, similar registration drives have been mounted in them as well, and party officials on both sides say record numbers of new voters are being registered nationwide. This largely hidden but deadly earnest battle is widely believed by campaign professionals and political scientists to be potentially decisive in the presidential election.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

which may explain why the DHS wanted to break up a sidewalk voter registration table that was set up to register brand new citizens coming out of the immigration department.

[jss]

Am I the only one who parsed VR as "virtual reality" instead of "voter registration" and wondered why the Dems making VR gains was relevant to anything?

[cos]

As a counterpoint, here's a recent article in Salon about Republican voter intimidation tactics: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/21/intimidation/

[wayward-va.livejournal.com]

Registering the voters is fine but you've also got to get them out to the polls. If the don't _actually vote_ then you haven't won jack shit. You need supporters that are motivated and have some staying power. So you have to ask where is the followup? Who is keeping up with these folks and who is going to make sure they get to the polls on November 2nd?