With only one week to go until the US Elections, it seems that at least 75% of you out there (if you’re voting) are planning to wait until November 4th. My question is, “Why?” If your State supports early voting, you really should go and get it over with. We all know that most people are procrastinators, and when it comes to voting a lot of people think that their vote doesn’t count. Well, just remember, your vote always counts if you use it… the way a lot of people “win” their elections is by hoping their opponents supports don’t vote.
As far as the election itself, it is currently assumed that with his stable 5 point lead Obama is untouchable and will be our next President, but history shows that’s not always the way it goes. Just look at the Gallup poll of Nixon vs Humphrey:
In 1968, the race between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey narrowed over the last month of the campaign, from double-digit leads for Nixon in late September to only an 8-point lead for him among registered voters in polling conducted Oct. 17-22. By Gallup’s final pre-election survey, conducted Oct. 29-Nov. 2, Nixon held only a 1-point edge among likely voters, and ultimately won the election on Nov. 5 by less than 1 percentage point, 43.4% to 42.7%.
As you can see, Nixon just barely won, even though Humphrey was way behind until the very end. Actually, in the past, the polls have never been that accurate, as you can see in this chart:
The polls showed higher numbers 9 times outof the past 14 elections… in fact, when polling higher, it averaged 6.59 points higher. When polling lower, it averaged 3.2 points lower. So, what does that all mean for Barack Obama? It means that his supporters shouldn’t just assume that he has it made since he’s polling 5 points higher… for John McCain, it means his supporters need to get out en masse and try to win this thing. It’s been reported that in California, a State where Obama is polled at +18, when it comes to over 210,000 early voters, he’s ahead by only 1000 votes (just +0.5), so yeah, your vote does count.
To sum this entire post up:
GO VOTE. DON’T WAIT. YOUR DEADLINE IS 7 DAYS AWAY.