Alice Jarboe with the Sacramento County Voter Registration and Elections office says California law allows candidates, campaigns and some universities access to the list of people who voted early, "A lot of the campaigns and the people who make estimates and projections look at the data that's available and take it to the next -what they consider logical- conclusion that, well, if you have 100 Democrats returning their vote-by-mail ballots, then you must be having 100 votes for the Democrat candidates."
Jarboe says the accuracy of those guesses can't be known until all of the votes are counted.
But, the numbers could determine how, when, and where candidates spend money and effort up until the election.
Jarboe says thousands voted, or picked up vote-by-mail ballots, on the Saturday before the 2008 general election.
