Exit poll: 80,000 Americans in Israel voted, 85% for Romney, 14% for Obama

[azurnoir]

According to an iVoteIsrael exit poll, half of the 160,000 eligible U.S. voters living in Israel voted absentee, of which an overwhelming majority selected Republican candidate Mitt Romney. That reportedly includes 7,500 registered in the swing state of Florida.

iVoteIsrael - the campaign that has worked hard to get American citizens living in Israel to vote absentee in next week’s U.S. presidential elections (and which I have been covering here since June and exposed to be a partisan, right-wing, anti-Obama initiative) – held a press conference Thursday afternoon in Jerusalem to announce the results of what they claim is the biggest exit poll of its kind ever conducted among American expats voting in an American election.

The campaign announced that a record number of 80,000 Americans who registered with them voted in this election, of which 85 percent voted for Republican candidate Mitt Romney, 14 percent for Obama (and 0.6 percent for “Other”). This is more than double the turnout of the 2008 election, in which a reported 30,000 Americans voted, and the number could even be greater as there are people who voted without using the campaign’s services. According to iVoteIsrael, there are around 160,000 eligible American voters living in Israel, so they are boasting having reached exactly half.

..................................................................

Since the 2000 Bush-Gore election ultimately came down to only 537 absentee ballots cast in Florida, if iVoteIsrael’s numbers for Florida are indeed accurate and the election is close enough that absentee ballots are counted, they could successfully swing the election in favor of Mitt Romney.

http://972mag.com/exit-poll-80000-americans-in-israel-voted-85-for-romney-14-for-obama/58829/

this is Americans living in Israel, and even though it does not say Jews it should be noted that US Jews have been polled @ about 65%-70% in favor of Obama

[aquart]

1. How idiotically suicidal.

[azurnoir]

3. well for once we agree but I'm left with a giant ?????????

why so heavily in favor of Romney, it really doesn't make much sense

[Qutzupalotl]

2. Well, he is more likely to bomb Iran.

[SubgeniusHasSlack]

4. Nothing good for America

comes from there.

[Democratopia]

5. iVoteIsrael's poll cannot be trusted as this group is a sham.

Apart from falsely claiming non-profit status as a non-partisan GOTV organization that is actually anti-Obama, this group also personally handles ballots and mails them. They have no business collecting ballots. What they do to them is anyone's guess. They should be investigated on both counts.

What more can you expect for a pro-Romney group?

[azurnoir]

10. more about that

Frances Hill, a law professor at the University of Miami, told me that, while iVoteIsrael is permitted to engage in “independent expenditure” on behalf of Romney, its offer to mail ballots is inconsistent with her understanding of how absentee votes should be handled. “I’ve never heard of a non-profit serving as a ballot broker. Why are they collecting the ballots? This is not the way we handle our absentee ballots—it should be administered by a government official,” she said. “The ballot brokers I know are sitting in a south Florida jail.” Like other legal experts, she said the process of voting absentee is highly regulated, casting doubt on the validity of absentee ballots if there is a break in what is called the “chain of custody” between the voter and the mailbox.

iVoteIsrael was launched this year by a shadowy non-profit called Americans for Jerusalem. The group’s only Internet paper trail consists of a scant website with no listed staff or address. (Pieprz declined to give any further details.) Its non-profit status allows iVoteIsrael to avoid disclosing donors, but its operations are clearly well-funded. Several months ago, a strategic consultant to the campaign suggested to me the donors were major Jewish philanthropists: the “Adelsons of the world,” he said, referring to billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, one of this election’s largest Republican donors and owner of Israel Hayom, an Israeli daily known for supporting Netanyahu’s government.

Unlike their overwhelmingly Democratic co-religionists in the U.S., the majority of Americans in Israel vote Republican, according to Mitchell Barak, the head of Kevoon, a survey firm in Israel. In the 2008 election, about 30,000 Americans in Israel voted absentee, of which a significant majority selected McCain (76 percent, compared with 78 percent for Obama in the U.S.). A recent article in Israel National News, a settler-run outfit, reported that iVoteIsrael expects between 50,000 and 70,000 to vote in this election. As for how many of the 163,000 registered voters are non-Jewish Arab-Americans (excluding West Bank Palestinians), Barak said it was difficult to say, and fair to assume Palestinian-Americans with Israeli citizenship weren’t being targeted by iVoteIsrael.

http://972mag.com/non-partisan-campaign-urging-americans-in-israel-to-vote-linked-to-right/57942/

[oberliner]

11. 972mag rides again!

I think their favorite adjective is "shadowy".

[Tx4obama]

6. Well the rest of the world favors Obama, see poll result chart on the link below

Chart here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20008687

[azurnoir]

7. except for Pakistan which really leaves me going

wtf

[Violet_Crumble]

9. I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for posting it...

Good to see my people are right up there when it comes to favouring Obama

[oberliner]

8. That seems about right

About 75 percent of those voters identify themselves as Orthodox or National Religious, with less than 10 percent identifying as secular.

Romney does very well among the very religious and does very poorly among the secular.

[LeftishBrit]

12. Those Americans who live in Israel tend to be right-wing...

often religious-right.

Other American Jews tend to take quite an opposite perspective, preferring Obama.

As for the Israeli citizens, who of course cannot vote in America, they tend to prefer Romney but not by quite as overwhelming a majority - a recent polls suggested 57% support Romney, and 22% Obama. Ha'aretz recently endorsed Obama, by the way.

If the UK could vote, it would be OVERWHELMINGLY for Obama; the same with most countries in Europe.