WASHINGTON (AFP) — Americans are turning out en masse to get their votes in ahead of the November 4 US presidential election, with a surge in early-voting Democrats suggesting Barack Obama may lead the vote tally thus far.
Huge numbers of people queued up at libraries, malls and schools to get their picks in early in key battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Nevada, as Americans sought to avoid the long lines, registration and voting machine hiccups that marred the 2004 presidential vote, election officials said.
In some states like Georgia and North Carolina early voting was double the pace of the last election.
"Early voting has steadily increased from 14 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2004, and (we) predict that as many as a third of the electorate in 2008 will cast their votes before November 4," said Paul Gronke, who heads the Early Voting Center at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
Democratic candidate Senator Obama's campaign was actively encouraging voting ahead of election day, in hopes of locking in the advantage many opinion polls are giving him over his rival, Republican John McCain.
"Do not wait until November 4," Obama urged voters in Tampa, Florida on Monday, the first day of early voting in the southern state seen as crucial by both parties.
"Your car might break down, you might have an emergency. Your alarm might not go off, you will not get to work on time. So take advantage of early voting," Obama said.
Early voting -- especially for soldiers by mail -- has been around in the United States since the 1860s Civil War, said James Hicks, a researcher at the Early Voting Center.
But the high numbers have come with many states -- now 33 of 50 -- allowing people to vote by mail or in person ahead of election day without having to give any excuse, such as being away on election day.
"It makes it more convenient for those who might not vote," Hicks told AFP.
Interminable lines on election days in some places has also been a catalyst.
In some Ohio areas in 2004, lines that stretched for hours discouraged many voters from casting ballots, which Democrats said was crucial to Democratic candidate John Kerry's loss of the overall election to President George W. Bush.
"We estimate that between 20,000 and 30,000 people were deterred from voting" in Franklin County, which includes the heavily Democratic city of Columbus, Ohio State University systems engineering professor Ted Allen told CNN Thursday.
"The African-American community here has been incredibly disenfranchised. In 2004 there were nine-hour lines, broken machines," Tate Hausman, director of Vote Today Ohio, told AFP as he ferried voters to voting centers in a van in Columbus Thursday.
Hausman said his pro-Obama group has already gotten more than 3,000 people to vote early, many of whom he said might not have bothered to vote on November 4.
"There are a lot of people who are new and unlikely voters. Maybe they will get around to it, maybe they won't... This is a really attractive option to them," he said.
Detailed statistics from some states Thursday suggested the surge in early voting was driven more by Democrats than Republicans, who traditionally dominate pre-election day balloting.
In Georgia some 900,000 people -- more than 25 percent of Georgia's total turnout in 2004 -- had voted early by Thursday afternoon, with a heavy turnout of black voters in the mix.
North Carolina, which until weeks ago was considered likely to vote for McCain, reported more than 830,000 voters had voted early, with about 2.5 registered Democrats turning out for every one Republican.
In Florida, also until recently believed solidly behind McCain, more than 470,000 people had voted by Thursday, 54.5 percent of them registered Democrats, and only 30.5 percent registered Republicans.
Democrats are hoping too that early voting can help them increase the turnout of their supporters and avoid challenges to voter registrations already being mounted by the Republicans.
"Democrats benefit when turnout goes up," said Hausman, while "Republicans want to suppress turnout."
"It's easier to suppress the vote than to turn out the vote."
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