Texas Early Voting and the "Operation Chaos" Effect

Do Texas Early Vote Totals Belie Low Republican Enthusiasm Meme?

One of the popular themes in the Austin local media last week was the high early vote turnout in Travis County, the academic, uberliberal county of Texas. Thunders Saturday's Austin American Statesman:

"Almost half of Travis County's 609,224 registered voters had cast their ballots by the time early voting ended Friday, easily shattering previous records. "

So how are the early votes breaking?

"When a list of general-election voters is released, political analysts, such as [Leland] Beatty, match the names to the roster of Democratic and Republican primary voters, thereby predicting how many votes will fall to one party or the other.

In Travis County, Democratic primary voters outnumbered Republicans nearly 4-to-1 in early voting as of Wednesday, when the most recent statistics were available, Beatty said....

"We've never seen anything like this election," Beatty said, adding that he thinks Democrats will make gains throughout the state. "

Combine this story with a recent hilarious AP pyschoanalysis claiming Obama supporters are "enthusiastic" and McCain supporters "glum", you might think that Texas Republican voters are just going through the motions in anticipation of an Dem landslide.

But what do the statewide early vote turnout numbers really show?

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