Tolbert: Most Counties Up In Early Voting Compared To 2010

The first week of early voting continues to see an overall increase compared to 2010, the most recent mid-term election.

It remains to the be seen if this indicates an increase in overall turnout for a typical mid-term election or an uptick in voters choosing to vote during early voting instead of Election Day. Regardless, here are my main takeaways from the first four days of voting (Friday and Saturday numbers are still being compiled).

• With around 101,000 voting early, turnout is up around 21% percent compared to 2010, which saw a little over 83,000 for the same time period.  48 counties saw an increase, while only 10 counties saw a decrease (another 12 counties did not have complete data to compare).
• Although most voters are listed as optional (around 92,000), Republicans have a slight lead in the number of registered voters – 4,488 Republicans compared to 4,344 Democrats.  As it is unknown how the optional group is voting, this does not mean more Republicans are early voting, but it seems to indicate both parties are turning out their bases.
• The biggest increase continues to be Pulaski County, which is up over 50%.  Almost 19,000 early voted through Thursday compared to over 12,000 for the same period in 2010. This is good news for Democrats who are targeting Pulaski County heavily in their turnout strategy. Jefferson County is also up around 50% with 2,156 compared to 1,375 in 2010.
• Several counties which traditionally trend Republican also are seeing a big uptick. Benton County is up around 67%, Faulkner County is up around 76%, Washington County is up around 128%, and Saline County is up around 47%.  It should be noted that while all four counties have trended heavily Republican, Democrats claim they have targeted pockets of Democratic voters in these counties, particularly college voters in Faulkner (UCA) and Washington (UA) counties.
• The biggest increase on a percentage basis has been two counties where early voting was largely non-existent in 2010, but is being heavily utilized this election. For the first four days, Cross County went from 21 early votes in 2010 to 703 in 2014 and Little River County went from 7 voters in 2010 to 364 in 2014.

Again, overall 2014 early vote turnout is somewhere between 2010 and 2012 levels. Republican consultant Clint Reed of Impact Management Group had an interesting point on Sunday’s Talk Business & Politics show on KATV regarding these numbers.

“What I’m seeing is that Democrats are cannibalizing their voters that could be potentially Election Day voters by having them vote early,” Reed observed.  His full interview with Jay Barth can be seen here.