Early Check on Turnout Models

Nate Silver takes a look at the early voting numbers in Georgia [emphasis in original]:

Here are the numbers. In November 2004, black voters represented 27.4 percent of Georgia's active registered voter pool. As of October 1st, that figure has increased to 29.0 percent.
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Early voting is underway in Georgia, and according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, black voters do not represent 30 percent of Georgia's early voter turnout. Instead, they represent almost 40 percent. Although early voting figures can be idiosyncratic , Barack Obama certainly seems to be having little trouble getting his vote out. Indeed, Barack Obama is winning Georgia right now.

This is not a state that Obama is supposed to win. If he does, this will be a landslide.

More important, though, this starts to answer two of the real questions for this cycle:

1. Will all these new voters excited about the Obama campaign actually show up?
   
2. Are conventional polling techniques under-sampling the Post Boomers, because they use cell phones and screen their calls?
   

As of now, the numbers suggest "yes" -- at least for the first question.