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Romney’s path to victory goes through Florida, Ohio, and Virginia

Mitt Romney has one clear route to victory on Nov. 6: In addition to winning all the states we know he will win, he has to capture Florida, Virginia, Ohio and at least one of five other swing states.

It's very possible Romney will win more than that. Our model of presidential elections, for example, has him with a 17.2 percent chance of winning Pennsylvania. Were he to manage that, however, it would almost certainly be part of a national landslide in his favor that includes most of the swing states. While I'm sure the Romney campaign would be delighted to win Pennsylvania, if it manages that it will be because Romney won far more than the 270 electoral votes he needed.

Here is where things stand today:

According to the Signal's election model, which combines polling, prediction markets and historical data, there are 18 states that will definitely vote for Romney and 13 that will definitely vote for Obama.

There are six additional states in each camp that have at least an 80 percent chance of going for the leading candidate.

In those 12 heavily leaning states, it is very possible that Romney or Obama can pick off one. It is nearly impossible that one of these states will decide the election.

This leaves eight states, worth 95 electoral votes, in play. Without those states, Obama has 237 electoral votes to Romney's 206 electoral votes. A candidate needs 270 votes for victory, so Obama needs 33 more and Romney needs 64 more to win.

If Romney can capture Florida, Virginia, and Ohio—the three swing states he's most likely to win—he will come within four votes of the magic number. At that point, he would need any one of the other swing states: New Hampshire and Iowa are the most likely, both near 55 percent for Obama. While Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, hails from Wisconsin, the polls there have consistently favored Obama by about 4 percentage points. Data from the past 10 elections has demonstrated again and again that vice-presidential home state bumps are negligible.

Can he do it? Follow along in real time with PredictWise.com.

David Rothschild has a Ph.D. in applied economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Follow him on Twitter @DavMicRot and email him at thesignal@yahoo-inc.com.

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Feds OK Florida access to citizens list

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a victory for Republicans, the federal government has agreed to let Florida use a law enforcement database to challenge people's right to vote if they are suspected of not being U.S. citizens.

The agreement, made in a letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott's administration that was obtained by The Associated Press, grants the state access to a list of resident noncitizens maintained by the Homeland Security Department. The Obama administration had denied Florida's request for months but relented after a judge ruled in the state's favor in a related voter-purge matter.

Voting rights groups, while acknowledging that noncitizens have no right to vote, have expressed alarm about using such data for a purpose not originally intended: purging voter lists of ineligible people. They also say voter purges less than four months before a presidential election might leave insufficient time to correct mistakes stemming from faulty data or other problems.

Democrats say that the government's concession is less troubling than some GOP-controlled states' push to require voters to show photo identification.

But Republicans count it as a victory nonetheless in their broad-based fight over voter eligibility, an issue that could play a big role in the White House race. That's especially true in pivotal states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina.

Republican officials in several states say they are trying to combat voter fraud. Democrats, however, note that proven cases of voter fraud are rare. They accuse Republicans of cynical efforts to suppress voting by people in lower socio-economic groups who tend to vote Democratic.

The Homeland Security decision may affect places beyond Florida, because Colorado and other states have asked for similar access to the federal database.

After a judge recently ruled against federal efforts to stop Florida's aggressive voter-list review, Homeland Security agreed to work on details for how the state can access the federal SAVE database — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — to challenge registered voters suspected of being noncitizens.

Florida has agreed that it can challenge voters only if the state provides a "unique identifier," such as an "alien number," for each person in question. Alien numbers generally are assigned to foreigners living in the country legally, often with visas or other permits such as green cards.

Unless they become naturalized citizens, however, they cannot vote.

The agreement will prevent Florida from using only a name and birthdate to seek federal data about a suspected noncitizen on voter rolls.

The SAVE list is unlikely to catch illegal immigrants in any state who might have managed to register to vote because such people typically would not have an alien number.

Scott, whose administration had sued Homeland Security for access to the SAVE list, said the agreement "marks a significant victory for Florida and for the integrity of our election system."

"Access to the SAVE database will ensure that noncitizens do not vote in future Florida elections," Scott said in a statement Saturday.

In a letter Monday, the department told Florida it was ready to work out details for providing access to the SAVE list. The letter was signed by Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

It follows a flurry of legal actions between Florida and the federal government. On June 11, the Justice Department said it would sue Scott's administration on grounds that the state's voter-purge efforts violated voting rights laws.

The same day, Scott announced a lawsuit against Homeland Security seeking access to the SAVE list. He said it could be a valuable tool in determining who is a citizen. Two weeks later, a U.S. judge blocked the federal attempts to stop Florida's voter review efforts; the Mayorkas letter soon followed.

A Homeland Security spokesman said Saturday the agency had no further comment.

Department officials told the Orlando Sentinel last month they had concerns about using the SAVE list for voter-review purposes. They said the list's information is incomplete and does not provide comprehensive data on all eligible voters, the newspaper reported.

Scott's administration hopes to restart a suspended voter registration purge that was hampered this year by faulty data and bad publicity. The review, using driver's license information, initially produced 180,000 voters' names considered worthy of checking. County election supervisors examined 2,625 people on the list. But more than 500 were soon found to be citizens, and the review was halted.

State records show that 86 noncitizens were removed from the voter rolls since April 11, and more than half of them had voted in previous elections.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner asked election officials Saturday to restart the review. He said it will "include a carefully calibrated matching process" between the state's driver and voter data "before any records are verified through SAVE."

But Florida Sen. Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa Democrat, said Scott and his team should not be purging voter lists so close to a big election.

"This is just another in the continuing saga of his efforts to suppress the vote, along with a lot of the other Republican governors," Joyner said. "They are all caught up in trying to keep this president from getting re-elected."

While some noncitizens who are legal residents may knowingly try to register and vote, others apparently do so unwittingly. After obtaining a driver's license, some assume they also can vote, officials say.

Access to the federal SAVE list may catch such ineligible voters in Florida. They presumably would have an alien number and be listed in state motor vehicle records.

Voter-rights groups expressed concerns about Florida's efforts.

"No matter what database Florida has access to, purging voters from the rolls using faulty criteria on the eve of an election could prevent thousands of eligible voters from exercising their rights," said Jonathan Brater, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. "Florida must use a more transparent and accurate process and must leave enough time for voters targeted for removal to be notified and correct errors," he said.

Some state governments have sought access to the federal database for years. Federal officials told Washington state in 2005 they saw no way to compare voters and the Homeland Security information.

Colorado has sought the federal data for a year. Colorado, which has a Democratic governor but a Republican secretary of state, Scott Gessler, has identified about 5,000 registered voters that it wants to check against the federal information.

Officials in the politically competitive states of Ohio, Michigan, New Mexico and Iowa — all led by GOP governors — are backing his efforts.

Gessler said 430 registered voters have acknowledged being ineligible, but an "unenforceable honor system does not build confidence in our elections."

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

In 2007, five years after the George W. Bush administration launched a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department found virtually no evidence of organized efforts to influence federal elections with ineligible voters.

___

Associated Press writers Gary Fineout in Tallahassee, Fla., and Mike Baker in Olympia, Wash., contributed to this report.

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Florida House passes speedy foreclosure bill (AP)

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Federal agents raid Imperial Holdings' Florida offices (Reuters)

(Reuters) – Federal investigators on Tuesday raided the Florida offices of Imperial Holdings Inc (IFT.N), a company that makes lump-sum payments on legal settlements and life insurance policies, the FBI said.

Imperial Holdings confirmed the raid and said it, along with certain employees, including its chairman and chief executive and its president and chief operating officer, were under investigation for matters related to the company's life-insurance business.

No actions had been taken against its structured-settlements business, the company said in a statement.

"Today's action comes as a complete surprise. We are not aware of any wrongdoing and will cooperate fully," Chairman and CEO Antony Mitchell said in the statement.

The company said it would hold a board meeting later on Tuesday and it expected all of its businesses to resume normal operations on Wednesday.

Shares of Imperial were halted for pending news at 1:42 p.m. ET and did not trade the rest of the day. The stock last changed hands at $6.32, down 2.8 percent.

Imperial Holdings became a publicly traded company in February when it raised $179.2 million in an initial public offering. The stock has lost 41 percent of its value since then.

Its largest shareholder, with a 9.5 percent stake according to Thomson Reuters data, is Pine Trading Ltd, a Bahamas-registered entity that only holds Imperial shares.

According to Imperial's annual report, Pine Trading is controlled by David Haring, who also controls other entities in partnership with Chairman and CEO Mitchell.

Insiders have recently been buying the company's shares, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Director Robert Rosenberg bought 1,000 shares in August, and Chief Financial Officer Rory O'Connell bought 7,500 shares then as well. O'Connell did not own any shares before that purchase, the filing showed.

Imperial lost money every year from 2008 through 2010, but was profitable in the first six months of this year, according to its posted financial statements.

Local media were first to report the raid.

The Palm Beach Post reported that FBI agents appeared to be gathering evidence inside the company's offices, and pictures on its website showed agents leaving the building.

The South Florida Business Journal said an agent leaving the building said he was working for the U.S. Treasury.

The FBI and the company said in statements that the investigation is being run out of New Hampshire.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Hampshire declined to comment, while a spokeswoman for the Florida attorney general's office could not immediately comment.

Underwriters on Imperial's IPO were led by FBR Capital Markets. FBR did not return calls for comment.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Ted Kerr, Gunna Dickson, Phil Berlowitz, Bernard Orr and Vinu Pilakkott)

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Federal agents raid Imperial Holdings' Florida offices (Reuters)

(Reuters) – Federal investigators on Tuesday raided the Florida offices of Imperial Holdings Inc (IFT.N), a company that makes lump-sum payments on legal settlements and life insurance policies, the FBI said.

Imperial Holdings confirmed the raid and said it, along with certain employees, including its chairman and chief executive and its president and chief operating officer, were under investigation for matters related to the company's life-insurance business.

No actions had been taken against its structured-settlements business, the company said in a statement.

"Today's action comes as a complete surprise. We are not aware of any wrongdoing and will cooperate fully," Chairman and CEO Antony Mitchell said in the statement.

The company said it would hold a board meeting later on Tuesday and it expected all of its businesses to resume normal operations on Wednesday.

Shares of Imperial were halted for pending news at 1:42 p.m. ET and did not trade the rest of the day. The stock last changed hands at $6.32, down 2.8 percent.

Imperial Holdings became a publicly traded company in February when it raised $179.2 million in an initial public offering. The stock has lost 41 percent of its value since then.

Its largest shareholder, with a 9.5 percent stake according to Thomson Reuters data, is Pine Trading Ltd, a Bahamas-registered entity that only holds Imperial shares.

According to Imperial's annual report, Pine Trading is controlled by David Haring, who also controls other entities in partnership with Chairman and CEO Mitchell.

Insiders have recently been buying the company's shares, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Director Robert Rosenberg bought 1,000 shares in August, and Chief Financial Officer Rory O'Connell bought 7,500 shares then as well. O'Connell did not own any shares before that purchase, the filing showed.

Imperial lost money every year from 2008 through 2010, but was profitable in the first six months of this year, according to its posted financial statements.

Local media were first to report the raid.

The Palm Beach Post reported that FBI agents appeared to be gathering evidence inside the company's offices, and pictures on its website showed agents leaving the building.

The South Florida Business Journal said an agent leaving the building said he was working for the U.S. Treasury.

The FBI and the company said in statements that the investigation is being run out of New Hampshire.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Hampshire declined to comment, while a spokeswoman for the Florida attorney general's office could not immediately comment.

Underwriters on Imperial's IPO were led by FBR Capital Markets. FBR did not return calls for comment.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Ted Kerr, Gunna Dickson, Phil Berlowitz, Bernard Orr and Vinu Pilakkott)

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