Battle mounts in Iowa for absentee votes

DES MOINES - Candidate endorsements on the editorial page, a link to a buzzy campaign ad passed along by a friend and yard signs popping up on front lawns like so many springtime dandelions.

All are sure signs that Election Day is almost here.

Just as important is what's been happening at county courthouses all across the state, where thousands of people have been asking for absentee ballots and registering as a member of a particular political party.

With about three weeks before the June 3 election, Iowa Republicans hold a roughly 3,000 registration advantage over the Democrats. The Democrats, meanwhile, are requesting, and returning early ballots at a rate about three times that of their Republican counterparts.

These numbers aren't as significant in a primary - which is when voters in a political party choose their nominees - as they will be a few months from now in the lead-up to the November general election.

Still, they can give insight into the strengths and strategies the political parties and individual campaigns will bring to bear when their candidates are selected.

Democrats, for instance, will push hard for early voting as their constituencies are less likely to show up to the polls on Election Day than Republicans.

'Election Day is every day,” said Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Christina Freundlich, explaining the philosophy. 'The election is just the last day you cast a vote.”

Telegraphing the candidates

University of Northern Iowa political science professor Chris Larimer has pored over the voter registration numbers of several cycles.

Republicans have beaten Democrats at the registration game every month since August 2013.

'What's important about registration numbers is not so much the overall figure, but where they are concentrated,” he said. 'It tells us where we can expect the candidates to be.”

For example, Larimer said, more than 60 percent of the Democratic voters in the 20-county 1st Congressional District are in Black Hawk, Linn and Dubuque counties.

The five candidates vying for the Democratic Party nomination likely will get more mileage, then, out of a stop in any of these three counties than any of the others.

The margin is even more pronounced in the 3rd Congressional District, where more than 70 percent of all registered voters are living either in Dallas, Polk or Pottawattamie counties, leaving 30 percent of the registered voters spread out over the district's remaining 13 counties.

'It becomes a convenience thing when you get down to it,” Larimer said. 'Ultimately, visiting a county of 10,000 people is not as important as one that has 200,000 people.”

Vote by mail

Democrats, in turn, have been more active in pushing vote-by-mail among their constituencies. It speaks directly to data that shows Republican voters tend to turn up at the polls in larger numbers than Democrats for elections, while Democrats are more open to voting early.

And a ballot sent early is a voter the party doesn't have to turn out on Election Day.

'That's money in the bank,” said Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University. 'You don't have to worry about them.”

As of Thursday, Democrats have requested 8,943 absentee ballots to the Republicans' 2,531 statewide, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's Office. They've returned 4,531 ballots to the Republican return of 1,237.

Tim Hagle, a University of Iowa political science professor who studies registration and turnout in elections, said it speaks directly to political philosophy.

'Republicans like to vote on Election Day whether it's a general or a primary. They tend to be more conservative and like the tradition of casting the ballot,” he said.

'Younger voters and minority voters like to vote early or absentee.”

Freundlich wouldn't discuss the Democrats' field operations, but suggested the numbers are reflective of individual campaigns pushing absentee voting among their supporters.

More absentee ballots have been requested by Democrats in the 1st Congressional District, where there's a five-way Democratic primary, than any other.

Republican voters have requested more ballots in the 2nd Congressional District - where three people seek the Republican nomination - than any other.

Tommy Schultz, spokesman for Republican Gov. Terry Branstad's re-election campaign, was likewise mum about the governor's efforts.

'We do not discuss our campaign's internal turnout operations, but we will mount the most robust and successful turnout operation of any Republican candidate that this state has ever seen,” he said.