Early voting in Iowa, other states kicks off presidential election

Let the voting begin. 

More than five weeks before Election Day, voters in the Iowa battleground began to cast their ballots Thursday as early voting opened. 

The opening helped mark the start of a process that both campaigns have tried to take advantage of -- though it also challenged President Obama and Mitt Romney to quickly make their closing arguments to this group with considerable time, and three presidential debates, still left on the calendar. Iowa is the first swing state to open in-person early voting, though a few other states including South Dakota and Idaho have already started. 

In Iowa, experts predict four in 10 will likely end up voting before Election Day. A total of 32 states and the District of Columbia allow early voting, with relatively few restrictions -- many states launch the process next month. 

For some, Iowa's early-voting window was a chance to get their civic duty out of the way after a tiring campaign season. 

"I'm just so sick and tired of the process, and maybe it will cut down the calls," said Jane Ommen, 70, a retired University of Iowa clerical worker who voted for President Obama at the Johnson County Auditor's Office. 

The Obama campaign worked for weeks to promote early voting, which it sees as a key advantage in the race for Iowa's six electoral votes, and was quick out of the gate. Its theme to supporters was "Be the First," drawing a parallel between the state's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses that launched Obama to the White House and its status as one of the earliest voting swing states. The start of voting comes as polls show Obama pulling into a lead in Iowa. 

To be sure, Republicans are also urging voters to fill out absentee ballot requests, The Quad-City Times reported. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, was leading a rally to support GOP nominee Mitt Romney, the report said. 

The Democrats have built a nearly 5-1 advantage statewide in the number of absentee ballots requested as of Wednesday, with 119,318 compared to 24,909 for Republicans, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's Office. Another 41,000 independent voters have also requested ballots. Both campaigns say they believe the gap will narrow as Republicans increase their early voting efforts, but it also reflects differences in the parties' get-out-the-vote operations. 

Democrats have been casting a wide net looking for early votes, from party activists to college students to voters who usually favor the party but do not always turn out. They are putting a greater emphasis on voting in-person at county auditor's offices and at satellite locations in places like libraries and grocery stores than the Republicans. 

Voters lined up as county auditor's offices opened from Des Moines to Dubuque to be among the first to record their preferences in the battleground state, one of the first states where the election process is now in full swing. Some said they were excited to vote, while others were simply eager to put the bitter election behind them. 

By contrast, Republicans are sending out mass mailings with absentee ballot request forms targeting swing voters, allowing them to request their ballots and vote by mail, said Tom Szold, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee in Iowa. He said the Democrats' intense efforts toward early voting shows the party is worried about turning out its base, while Republicans are confident their voters will show up in greater numbers on the Nov. 6 election, as they typically do in Iowa. 

Obama campaign spokeswoman Erin Seidler said that after years of organizing in the Hawkeye State, the campaign has a wide network of supporters who are eager to vote. The campaign is far ahead of where it was 4 years ago for early voting, with tens of thousands of additional ballots having been requested, she said. 

Statewide, more than a third of the 1.54 million votes cast in 2008 were cast early, which was slightly above the national average. Elections officials expect another increase this cycle, with perhaps 40 percent of votes coming in the 40-day window before Election Day. 

While Democrats organized walks to early voting sites, Republicans planned a rally Thursday with Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in Cedar Rapids to promote early voting. Szold said similar events in coming days will promote voting in-person and by mail. 

The Democrats also were bringing in prominent Obama backers to shine a spotlight on voting. Actor Jason Alexander, who played George Costanza on "Seinfeld," was to be in Des Moines to promote the effort Thursday. First Lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to hold a rally Friday at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls to encourage early voting. 

Mrs. Obama recorded a web video asking Iowa supporters to vote early and to bring at least one other relative, neighbor or coworker to the polls with them. 

"We know that early votes provided the difference between winning and losing in key battleground states in 2008," she says on the video, "and we all know that this year's election is going to be even closer." 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Florida officials find 198 non-citizens on voter rolls after extensive search

Florida officially renewed its hunt for ineligible voters on Wednesday, sending a new list of 198 people suspected of being non-U.S. citizens to county election officials and asking them to start the process to remove them from the rolls. 

This new list is a far cry from the more than 2,600 registered voters that state election officials once targeted -- but Republican Gov. Rick Scott and others have defended the continued effort. 

"I have not talked to one Floridian who says I want my vote diluted by somebody who has never had a right to vote in my state," Scott said last week. "We are doing absolutely the right thing. We believe in honest and fair elections." 

It's not clear, however, if the latest effort by the state will result in voters being removed from the rolls prior to this year's presidential election. Florida is a key swing state, and voting rights groups have criticized the purge as a way of discouraging legal immigrants and minorities from casting ballots. 

Under the process that election supervisors will use, they will send out letters to those suspected of being non-citizens. In some cases it could take up to 60 days before the voters are eventually removed from the rolls. 

"It's going to take a while," said Susan Bucher, the Palm Beach County elections supervisor, who was sent the names of 14 voters suspected of being ineligible. "It lands us after Election Day." 

It was Scott who last year first pushed to have the state look for non-U.S. citizens on the rolls. The state initially compared a list of driver's licenses with voter registration data and came up with a potential list of 180,000 voters suspected of not being citizens. 

That list was pared back to much smaller one of more than 2,600 registered voters that was sent out to county election officials this past spring. Many election supervisors, however, did not wind up removing anyone after questions about the law and the accuracy of the list arose. There are still outstanding lawsuits that contend that the state lacks the authority to remove voters within 90 days of Election Day -- although one federal judge this summer sided with the state. 

The most recent list came about after the state reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to screen names on a federal immigration database. That yielded a list of 207 names -- which has gotten smaller as state officials have continued to verify information. 

Some of those on the most recent list include voters who have already admitted that they are not citizens. 

Most of the voters on the latest list are from Miami-Dade County, although there are suspected ineligible voters from the Panhandle to Southwest Florida. 

While Florida moves ahead with its most recent purge, the state has agreed to ask counties to reach out to the voters targeted earlier this year and inform them they are still registered. 

The state also agreed to place back on the rolls any voter whose non-citizenship status has not been confirmed by the database Florida is now using. At least two counties -- Collier and Lee -- had removed voters from the rolls because they did not respond to certified letters and newspaper ads.

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Nelson widens lead on Mack in Florida, lessening Republicans’ hopes for Senate control

The Florida race for U.S. Senate seat appears to be turning into a voters’ choice for the most acceptable candidate when deciding between two unpopular choices and perhaps a missed opportunity for Republicans.

In their quest to regain control of the Senate, Republicans took early aim at two-term Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson, portraying him as a Washington insider who was past his prime.

However, GOP Rep. Connie Mack IV has failed to capitalize on those advantages and has fallen behind in recent polls.

Mack trail Nelson by 7 percentage points, according to a Sept. 4 poll by Democrat-leaning Public Policy Polling. The poll also gave Nelson a favorability rating of 35 percent compared to 27 percent for Mack. The 69-year-old Nelson was leading by 2 percentage points, according to a July poll by the firm.

In addition, a poll released this week by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research shows Nelson leading Mack 48 percent to 40 percent, a three-point gain compared to the nonpartisan firm’s July poll.

The Mack campaign says the polls show Nelson’s campaign has stalled and that he cannot reach the all-important 50 percent, despite “a month of spending millions of dollars running perhaps the most obnoxiously negative personal smear campaigns” in the history of Florida politics.

“The people of Florida … want and deserve a senator who will stand with them and fight for them – not a 40-year,  career politician who tells them one thing and then votes like a lock-step liberal with Barack Obama,” Mack campaign manager Jeff Cohen said Friday.

Perhaps the most positive number out of the recent polls was the percentage of undecided voters in the Mason-Dixon telephone survey of 800 registered voters – an unusually high 11 percent.

While Republicans are trying to ride the anti-incumbent wave that helped them in 2010 win control of the House, Democrats have publicized Mack’s incidents of road rage and fights to portray him as too volatile for public office.

Democrats hold 23 of the 33 Senate seats up for grabs in November. They also have a 51-47 majority and votes from two independent senators, which mean Republicans would need a net gain of at least four seats on Election Day.

The Nelson campaign says the 45-year-old Mack -- the son of a senator, great-grandson of a baseball legend and husband of the widow of the late Sonny Bono –trails despite huge financial support from outside money.

 “What’s interesting is this comes after there have been $9.2 million in false and negative TV ads against Nelson from outside groups and super PACs tied to the Koch brothers, Karl Rove and undisclosed corporate dollars behind the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s political attack arm,” said the campaign, according to The Orlando Sentinel. 

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Obama appeals to middle class, jabs at Romney in weekend of furious campaigning

President Obama on Saturday made his appeal to middle class voters while taking a few swipes at Mitt Romney as the presidential campaigns charged into the weekend with well-honed messages for potential voters in several states.

"This country doesn't succeed when only a few do well," the president said during a early-evening rally in Milwaukee. "America  succeeds when the middle class does well." 

The president also attacked Romney plan to extend tax cuts to all Americans by saying he could pay more “and Mitt Romney could sure afford to pay a little more.”

The president’s comments came one day after Romney release a summary of his 2011 tax returns and after a recent video surfaced in which the GOP presidential candidate suggested nearly half of Americans don’t pay taxes.

“We can't move forward if we've got leaders who write off half the nation,” the president said. “I don't see a lot of victims (here) today.”

Earlier Saturday, GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan was in Miami where he told a crowd full of Cuban-Americans that he and Romney will restore the American Dream that brought them to this country and be tougher than Obama on the Castro regime.

“People aren’t working and opportunity is slipping away,” Ryan said at a campaign stop in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood. “People pick up and they go for a better life in this country … Mitt Romney and I are trying to restore that.”

He also attacked the president for his recent remarks he made on the Spanish-language Univision network about his struggle to change Washington. Ryan also attempted, as he has before, to convince potential voters that he and Romney have the region’s best interest at heart, considering his mother is a resident.

Vice President Joe Biden was busy in New Hampshire trying once again to assure middle-class voters that Democrats are the true champions of the middle class. Biden, whose roots in working-class Scranton, Pa., appeal to union crowds, was also trying to secure the union vote for the president and other candidates in the Democratic Party, which has long benefited from organized labors’ support – from campaign cash to extensive get-out-and-vote efforts.

“There is a middle class because of the word union,” Biden said in a union hall in Manchester, N.H. “We need all volunteers because we are going to be outspent by super PACs. It’s a knock on the door.”

The campaigns enter the final six weeks of the race amid protests in the Middle East and North Africa in which 40 people have been killed, including four Americans, and efforts to learn whether the sieges were pre-planned and terrorist attacks.

The camps in recent days have also tried to capitalize on earlier-made statements by the rival candidate – the secretly recorded one this year in which Romney said 47 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes and are "dependent on the government."

The Romney camp took aim at Obama saying 14 years ago in an audio clip: “I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level, to make sure that everybody's got a shot."

The race for the White House remains close and will likely be decided in several battleground states, including Florida, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

This week, Gallup released a poll showing the candidates locked at 47 percent each, while a Fox News poll showed Obama leading by 7 percentage points among likely voters in Ohio (49-42 percent) and Virginia (50-43 percent) and holding a five-point edge in Florida (49-44 percent.)

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC/Marist poll showed Romney trailing in Colorado, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The poll show Romney trailing Obama 45 percent to 50 percent in Wisconsin where Romney had hoped to grow support after picking Ryan, who represents that state in Congress.

Still, Obama will be in Wisconsin on Saturday for three campaign-fundraising events, a sign political experts say indicates the race there remains tight.

Obama has not campaigned in Wisconsin since February. No Republican presidential candidate has won Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The Romney campaign responded to Obama’s visit to Wisconsin just minutes after the president spoke.

“After an absence of 220 days, President Obama has finally returned to Wisconsin – a state he won by over 14 points four years ago,” said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. “In Wisconsin, and all over America, people are tired of the president’s false attacks and broken promises. … America can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama.”

The first lady is attending an awards ceremony Saturday night in Washington for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Biden made two campaign stops in New Hampshire and was joined by wife Jill Biden.

Romney was fundraising in California while Ryan made two stops in Florida, including an afternoon visit in Orlando, a town hall at the University of Central Florida. He was joined in Miami by former Florida GOP Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

“You know, just a couple days ago on Univision, President Obama admitted that he can't change Washington from the inside,” Ryan said in Miami. “Why do we send presidents to the White House in the first place?”

He also said about the Castro family’s grip on Cuba, “We need to crack down on this regime.”

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