Obama Looks To Cement Lead In Polls With Final Visit West

In the latest AP-GfK poll released Wednesday, Obama leads Sen. John McCain 50 to 41 percent in Colorado and 52 to 40 percent in Nevada. Looking at the complete data set, the Obama campaign’s push to turn out early voters appears to be working. Of those surveyed who had already voted, 57 percent picked Obama versus 34 percent for McCain in Colorado, and 56 percent of Nevada early voters chose Obama compared with 33 percent picking McCain.

Early voters in Colorado are favoring Barack Obama by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (Reuters)

Hoping to lock in these swing states turned Democratic leaners, Sen. Barack Obama is headed to Colorado and Nevada for the second weekend in a row. Some are speculating Obama’s real reason for heading back west the weekend before the election is to stump in McCain’s home state. The latest polls show McCain’s once commanding lead falling to the low single digits, in some cases evaporating into the margin of error. For comparison, Obama enjoys a 20+ point lead in his home state of Illinois.

Considering McCain won reelection to the U.S. Senate with 77 percent of the vote in 2004 and 69 percent in 1998, to be running neck and neck in a statewide election represents a huge reversal of fortune for the Arizona senator even if he manages to carry the state on November 4.

Purged Voters In Colorado Can Cast (Provisional) Ballots

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office has settled a lawsuit brought by voters’ rights groups and the SEIU over what they claimed were illegal purges from the voter roles. The agreement allows the suspect voters to cast provisional ballots and essentially jump to the front of the line when verifying provisional ballots after the election.

“Voters on the list shall be presumed to be eligible and their ballots will be counted,” the agreement says, according to the Denver Post. “Only upon a showing by clear and convincing evidence that a voter is not eligible shall a provisional ballot be rejected by the county.”

The two parties reached the out of court agreement Wednesday, but it looked like the presiding judge was leaning toward the plaintiffs.

“I think there are places where the state went out of bounds on removal of these names,” Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr. said, according to the Post.

The New York Times first reported on the purges in Colorado and other states earlier this month, and soon after election officials began disputing the claims in the story.

Before the agreement in Colorado was announced, alt-weekly Denver Westword featured an online interview with BBC journalist Greg Palast who co-wrote a Rolling Stone article on Republican voter suppression tactics.

Palast claims former Secretary of State Donetta Davidson, a Republican, and her Democratic successor Mike Coffman purged 19.4 percent of Colorado’s registered voters since 2004.

“Are you really telling me that one in five voters are fraudulent, illegal voters who are trying to steal the election?” Palast said in Westword. “No, they’re not. Is the state really rife with fraudulent voters? No, it’s not. It’s a complete, absolute con, and they know it. Davidson and Mike Coffman have been running a purge-and-block operation.”