Barack Obama, Voting | featured news

Just two days from the finish, President Barack Obama's campaign is mobilizing a massive get-out-the-vote effort, as Republican Mitt Romney makes a play for votes in Pennsylvania.

The campaigns are ready for Election Day -- so are their legal teams. President Obama and Mitt Romney both have battalions of lawyers ready to litigate any voting disputes that could affect this year's election. Legal strike forces are now a campaign standard, thanks largely to the disputed 2000 recount in Florida between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

The President voted Thursday in his hometown neighborhood in Chicago. He cast his ballot in between stops in Cleveland, Tampa and Richmond. Obama is pumping up efforts in key states, visiting eight states in two days.

Early voters could account for up to 40 percent of all voters in the 2012 presidential election, and polls of people who already have cast ballots show President Barack Obama with a comfortable lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Obama’s hoping what happened with Katy Perry in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas, but spreads to the whole state of Nevada to give him an edge. The president and the pop star joined forces into the wee hours on Wednesday night for a campaign rally concert in the battleground state, where they pumped up a crowd of 13,000. The sexy singer adapted her signature style for the event, turning her body into a ballot in a tight white latex dress printed with the names of the candidates.

The election is still three weeks away, but first lady Michelle Obama voted for the president on Monday. "The president and first lady are making history by voting early in person and by mail in order to promote the ease, convenience, and importance of voting," the Obama campaign said in a press release on Monday.

A month before the closing arguments of a campaign traditionally would be made, a steady stream of voters walked into election offices across Iowa on Thursday to cast their ballots.

Mitt Romney wrongly suggests the Obama campaign is trying to "undermine" the voting rights of military members through a lawsuit filed in Ohio. The suit seeks to block state legislation that limited early voting times for nonmilitary members; it doesn't seek to impose restrictions on service members.

The battle for presidential votes in the key state of Ohio is heading to court. President Obama's campaign has sued the state of Ohio over new rules for early voting designed to benefit members of the military, saying the extra hours should be available to all voters.

Gone are the days when young voters weren't taken seriously. In 2008, they helped propel Barack Obama into the Oval Office, supporting him by a 2-1 margin... Since the last election, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Wisconsin and Texas and other states have tried to limit or ban the use of student IDs as voter identification. In Florida, lawmakers tried to limit "third party" organizations, including student groups, from registering new voters.