Early Voting Results Show Slight Obama Lead

Early voting results for the 2012 presidential election show that President Obama has a slight lead over Mitt Romney in several key states.

More than 27 million voters in 34 states and the District of Columbia took advantage of early voting, but analysts say Romney may still be able to wipe out the president’s lead come Election Day. Votes will not be counted until Tuesday, but several states are releasing the party affiliations of early voters, which is generally a good indication of which candidate they picked.

In Colorado, 1.6 million people voted. Republicans outnumbered Democrats 37 percent to 35 percent.

About 3.9 million people voted in Florida, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 43 percent to 40 percent. A judge in Orlando extended early voting hours in Orange County after the state Democratic Party sued to give people more time at the polls.

The party also filed a federal lawsuit for more voting time in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties. The lawsuit said counties should offer absentee voting if early voting could not be extended.

Democrats dominated Republicans in North Carolina. Out of 2.5 million voters, 48 percent were Democrats and 32 percent were Republicans.

A total of 628,000 people voted in Nevada, where 44 percent were Democrats and 37 percent were Republicans.

Democrats made up 43 percent of the 614,000 early voters in Iowa. Republicans made up 32 percent.

In Ohio, Democrats made up 29 percent of 1.6 million voters. Republicans were 23 percent of early voters. Party affiliation in that state is based on the last primary in which a voter participated.

In Akron, voters waited an average of two hours Sunday. In Columbus, 15,000 people waited for up to two hours from Friday through Sunday. In Cincinatti, voters waited as long as four hours to cast their ballots.