After millions of votes, Democrats outnumber repugicans

Early voting is changing campaign strategy and voter behavior like no other presidential race in history, experts say, as John McPain and Barack Obama make final cross-country pushes this weekend.

Both candidates are hoping to reap the lion's share of more than 23 million votes that have been cast nationwide. They're targeting states where polls remain open through the weekend -- and, in some cases, into Monday.

Polls indicate that many, if not most, of the early votes in more than 30 states are being cast by registered Democrats.

Of 23,298,564 total in-person and mail-in ballots in 25 states, at least 6,057,527 -- or 26 percent -- were cast by Democrats or repugicans, according to election officials.
Of that 6 million, 57.8 percent were Democrats, and 42.2 percent were repugicans.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Friday that the campaign has been successful motivating voters to cast ballots early, thanks to a vast national network of neighborhood captains, whom he said will be out in full force this weekend in North Carolina and Florida.

"We are confident that we have a lot of good voters left," Plouffe said, adding that Obama plans to stump hard this weekend in western states such as Colorado, where the campaign is targeting independent voters.

Michael McDonald of George Mason University predicted that McPain will have a "very tough time in some of the western states like Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, just because we're seeing that Democrats are apparently casting a lot of ballots in those states."

Early voting is handled differently in every state. But in general, it allows voters to cast ballots in person before Election Day using either voting machines or so-called absentee ballots, without having to provide an excuse.

North Carolina topped 2 million in-person early voters Friday, said election officials, about twice the previous record since the state began no-excuse early voting in 2000.

About half the state's 100 counties have voted to extend voting Saturday by two hours, said state election board deputy director Johnnie McLean.

The entire $3 million early voting project, she said, "will enable voters who come on Election Day to vote without staying until midnight."

To the south in Georgia, officials in Fulton Countysaid that they are considering extending early voting through the weekend.

Georgia also has set records in the past two weeks of early voting, and the Obama campaign boasts 4,800 captains who were recruited during the summer and early fall.