Early voting changes Iowa's political landscape

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By Ed Tibbetts | Saturday, November 8, 2008 9:31 PM CST | () comments

The Scott County Administrative Center was a busy site for the last day of early voting Nov. 3.(Larry Fisher/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

Early voters so dominated the election landscape in the Iowa Quad-Cities this year that political leaders on both sides say candidates and their parties are going to have to shift strategies.

For the most part, it’s the Republicans who will have to do the shifting. But even Democrats — who have driven early voting in the state since 2002 — were amazed at the turnout among early voters in the Quad-Cities this year.

Forty-two percent of voters cast early or absentee ballots, according to unofficial figures from the Scott County Auditor’s Office. That’s 37,000 out of 87,000 votes cast. Total turnout was 71.8 percent.

The previous high for absentees was 26,000 out of 83,000 votes cast, or 32 percent.

Quad-Citians far surpassed other large Iowa counties in early turnout. Linn and Polk counties each reported early turnout at 33 percent.

About 5,000 more Democrats than Republicans voted early in Scott County, but the numbers are not yet available to see how they actually voted, according to the auditor’s office.

Perhaps the best indicator, however, were the results.

Republicans Jamie Van Fossen, Ross Paustian and Steve Ahrens were leading or tied with their rivals before the bulk of absentee and early votes were reported. They ended up losing.

Paustian led by 700 votes over Rep. Elesha Gayman, D-Davenport, before an onslaught of early votes were reported. He lost by 800. Ahrens led Democrat Roxanna Moritz by 3,500 votes in the Scott County auditor’s race until early votes gave her a nearly 2,000-vote victory.

For years, Republicans have argued early voting isn’t worth the effort because it simply shifts people from voting on Election Day to casting early ballots.

That view may be changing.

“Whether we like it or not, that type of voting is here to stay,” Scott County Republican Party Chairman Bryan Sievers said.

He, like other Republicans, continues to express concerns about safeguards to prevent voter fraud in early voting. But he said there needs to be a recognition that it is having a political impact.

“To do nothing ... or fail to develop a program in the future would be the wrong way to go,” he said.

The Obama campaign and local Democrats used a variety of techniques to encourage early voting, including mailings, e-mails, text messages to cell phones, door-to-door canvassing and visits by political figures. For instance, Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean went to St. Ambrose University in mid-October on the day a satellite voting station was open on campus. He repeatedly urged students to vote that day.

It would be a mistake to read too much of the Democrats’ success Tuesday into early voting, said Brian Dumas, a Davenport-based consultant who worked on Shawn Hamerlinck’s winning state Senate campaign.

Hamerlinck withstood a disadvantage on early votes to emerge a narrow winner over state Sen. Frank Wood, D-Eldridge.

“Barack Obama didn’t win because of early voting,” Dumas said. “People were looking for a change.”

Still, the Democrats’ organizational edge and early-voting emphasis has trickled down the ticket for several election cycles.

Sievers knows the effect well. He won on Election Day four years ago against Wood, only to lose when the absentees were counted.

Gayman also used an early vote to her advantage two years ago to defeat Republican incumbent Jim Van Fossen, Jamie’s father.

It’s too early to tell yet just how many of these early voters were new to the process — an indicator of whether Democrats were adding votes or just shifting them from Election Day. But there is evidence new voters were a part of the process.

Preliminary data show one of six early voters in Iowa this year were new voters. A third had cast only one ballot since 2002.

“My guess is that with Obama at the top of the ticket, they probably did get a fair amount of new people,” Dumas said.

If Democrats are enjoying the advantage now, however, a key labor leader here said they probably won’t for long.

“They’ll catch on,” Jerry Messer, president of the Quad-City Federation of Labor, said of the Republicans.

The local AFL-CIO outlet was heavily involved in Statehouse races and urged its members to vote early.

“If they (lose) enough times, they’ll figure it out,” Messer said.

The GOP decline in Scott County has taken place over several years.

Democrats have reversed the narrow Republican registration edge the GOP held four years ago to an 8,000 person advantage today. Also, Obama won the county by 14 percentage points over John McCain this year. In 2004, President Bush lost by only 2 points to Democrat John Kerry.

Democrats also hold a majority of the area’s Statehouse delegation, the county board of supervisors and, with Mortiz’s win in the auditor’s race, a majority of other elected offices in the county courthouse.

Sievers said the party will work to reverse those trends. One thing it will do, he said, is keep open its office on East 54th Street to try to bulk up its registration rolls.

“It takes investment in the election cycle earlier than what we’ve done in the past,” Sievers said. “We need to start now.”

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.