Can Weather Really Affect Election Results?

A topic was opened on the AccuWeather.com Forums last week about potential weather that could affect the U.S. Presidential Election on November 4th. I chimed in, questioning the partisan effects (wouldn't everyone be affected by the weather?) and pointing out that as many as one third of voters may vote early, i.e. between now and Nov. 4 (31 states support this according to USA Today).

Probably the easiest way to illustrate the potential for political weather havoc is to look at this map of the 2004 Presidential Election Results by County (by the University of Michigan who has some crazy cool 3-D ways of reinterpreting this map).

Here, you can see that, while a large low pressure system or front sweeping across the county would affect all parties, localized severe weather such as flooding, snow, or ice could hold back counties which are predominantly "red" or "blue". If 33% of people are voting before November 4th, the weather becomes less of an issue. As the date gets closer, AccuWeather.com will be producing national "Early Voting" and "Voting Day" maps, which will be available from the news headlines at right.

I didn't get a chance to research how weather has affected previous votes - if you have anything on that, leave me a Comment below.