Why IVN Called Florida for Obama

IVN published an article by Brenda Evans, which called the state of Florida for Obama, despite the “official” AP, New York Times, CNN, etc… news stations not declaring the outcome.

The Presidential race was not close. Not nearly as close as AP, the New York Times, CNN, etc… made it out to be. And for once, Florida didn’t even “matter.” But IVN published the article and stands by the declaration, regardless of whether the electoral votes were necessary for the following reasons:

From the official tally at the time of publication, Obama lead Romney by 55,825 votes. While, theoretically, Romney could make up the difference, even his campaign has conceded the state. Obama’s campaign similarly commented that they “believed” they won the state.

And from the make-up of the votes to be counted, a Romney come-from-behind victory is just not going to happen.

(1) Absentee Ballots: Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties have the most outstanding ballots. Obama received well over 60% in Miami-Dade and Broward, and 58% in Palm Beach in 2008. Therefore, we expect(ed) his margins to increase.

(2) The only county left with a significant number of ballots to give Romney an advantage is Duval County. Duval has about 3,600 absentee ballots to be counted. Not enough to make a real difference.

(3) The only other factor is provisional ballots. These tend to lean Democratic and will go to Obama’s favor for the same reason the rest of the election did: young voters (who haven’t lived in the same place and voted at the same polling location for 50 years) came out and voted.

Young voters tended to vote in record numbers this election. As a bit of editorialization, I believe this is because young voters live in a more interconnected world. Young voters were encouraged and reminded to go out and vote on election-day from their twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and even their Pinterest accounts. And these voters voted in big numbers for Obama.

That’s why Obama won. That’s why he already won Florida.