Weather affects voting

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Snowstorms, hurricanes and tornados are what usually put The Weather Channel’s news team in motion. This November, it will mobilize for the election.

The network, which commissioned a study on how many people might be dissuaded from going to the polls by bad weather, said it plans to send some of its meteorologists out into the field on Election Day to monitor the weather’s impact on voting.

The study, done in August, found that 25 percent of eligible voters said bad weather would have an impact on their ability or desire to get to the polls Nov. 6. Among people who said they were undecided between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, 35 percent said weather might make a difference in whether they vote.

Obama’s supporters should be hoping for clear skies: Twenty-eight percent of people who said they plan to vote for Obama said weather would have a significant or moderate impact on their decisions to vote; 19 percent of Romney supporters said it would.