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this year Republican legislatures have tried to limit early voting in states such as Ohio and Florida.
• If votes cast on Election Day decided the 2008 election, McCain would have won in Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa. But Obama won those states with an overwhelming early vote advantage, gained by mobilizing not only committed voters but also non-habitual voters with Internet ads, email and text messages and person-to-person home visits and phone calls.
• This time, putting votes in the bank is even more crucial for Obama. Amid a fragile economic recovery and a persistently weak job market, every voter who decides early is a voter who can't change his mind later, if unemployment worsens.
• The Romney camp is counting on four years taking their toll on Obama's supporters, lowering their intensity and making them a harder sell. Indeed, Obama's camp in 2008 closely monitored early voting patterns to determine whether they were in fact expanding the look of the electorate. The early voting patterns this time will show not so much whether Obama is changing the electorate and more whether he is actually mobilizing it.
• "The key for Obama is getting the best votes out of their lowest propensity voter," Romney political director Rich Beeson said. "With an intensity gap, that's the first problem they are going to have."
• Early voting begins in North Carolina on Thursday, just as the Democratic National Convention ends. Indiana and Kentucky are next on Sept. 17, followed by Wisconsin on Sept. 20. Contested states such as Michigan, New Hampshire and

Virginia are among a dozen states that open the ballot boxes the following week, on Sept. 22.
• In all, 32 states and the District of Columbia allow voters to cast early ballots, by mail or in person, without having to give a reason. Early voting has been expanding every four years, setting records in 2008, when more than three out of 10 votes were cast before Election Day. More than half of the ballots in Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Florida were cast before Election Day, with Colorado leading the pack with 78 percent of total votes cast early.
• Across the country, Republicans have worked to curtail early voting over the past four years, and their effort is ongoing. Florida and Ohio officials are embroiled in lawsuits over early voting.
• Republicans in Florida approved a law last year shaving the number of early voting days from as many as 14 to eight. Early-voting advocates are challenging that, and a panel of three federal judges recently determined the changes could hurt participation by blacks, who lean heavily toward the Democrats.

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