Decision 2012 (Analysis: First day of early voting in Louisiana)
by John Couvillon (excerpt)

March 24 is the date of Louisiana’s Presidential primary. While there are some local races on the ballot as well, we are limiting our discussion to the Republican Presidential race, as President Obama has minor opposition in the Democratic primary (three opponents qualified in Louisiana to oppose him). Early voting for this primary started Saturday and will continue until next Saturday (mail in ballots will still be accepted up until the day before Election Day). From examining early voting statistics provided to us by the Secretary of State, there are two things we noticed:

Yesterday’s turnout was 10,578, of whom 4,389 were Republicans. What does this early voting volume mean? Given the fact that the first day of early voting is typically the busiest day, we project at the present time that by Election Day, there will be about 25K early votes. When you compare this number against the 9,200 who early voted in the 2008 Republican Presidential primary, it appears that voter turnout would be nearly three times what it was in 2008.

In the 2008 primary, 6% of the Republican primary vote was cast early. Since early voting has become more popular over time (16% of those voting in the 2011 statewide elections voted early), we think at the present time that voter turnout will be between 16 and 32%, or a turnout of between 125-251K Republicans (for comparison’s sake, 161K voted for the Republican candidate in the 2008 primary)