Quote of note:

Maybe it's only because the accusations are more likely (since the cliffhanger election of four years ago) to be reported by the media, but it does appear that the Republicans in particular are investing more than the usual effort in finding ways to suppress the vote in areas that are predominantly black and poor and thus likelier to vote Democratic.

Watching for a Groundswell
By William Raspberry
Monday, November 1, 2004; Page A21

Tomorrow's "too close to call" presidential election may not be so close after all, a woman I know predicted the other day. There's a good chance, she said, that it will be decided by the "unwanted, unpolled unlikelies." That, of course, would be great news for challenger John Kerry, who has never had more than a marginal lead in the polls among those considered likely voters.

Several things prompt this woman's assessment. To start with, the political polls this cycle have tended to undercount Democrats -- in part, according to some reports, because Republicans are more likely to make themselves available to telephone pollsters. Further, college students -- who may be unusually active this election cycle and who may be more inclined to question the direction of the present administration -- are notoriously fused to their unlisted cell phones, meaning that they are unreachable by polling organizations that try to reach specific voters.

But the big thing is a "groundswell of new voters" -- many of whom, though eligible, didn't vote last time. That makes them, in the lexicon of pollsters, "unlikely" to vote this time.

I've been talking to people from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) who have been responsible for some of that groundswell. They predict that those of us who've relied on the polls to call this race a tossup may be very surprised.