Voter turnout best in generations, maybe a century

[kpete]

Source: Associated Press

Voter turnout best in generations, maybe a century

By SETH BORENSTEIN – 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — America voted in record numbers, standing in lines that snaked around blocks and in some places in pouring rain. Voters who queued up Tuesday and the millions who balloted early propelled 2008 to what one expert said was the highest turnout in a century.

It looks like 136.6 million Americans will have voted for president this election, based on 88 percent of the country's precincts tallied and projections for absentee ballots, said Michael McDonald of George Mason University. Using his methods, that would give 2008 a 64.1 percent turnout rate.

"That would be the highest turnout rate that we've seen since 1908," which was 65.7 percent, McDonald said early Wednesday. It also would beat the old post World War II high of 63.8 percent in the famed 1960 John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon squeaker. The 1908 race elected William Howard Taft over William Jennings Bryan.

The total voting in 2008 easily outdistanced 2004's 122.3 million, which had been the highest grand total of voters before.

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i34ao3tow5yhj2v7v24HM_wbT8JQD948LJRG0

[Texano78704]

1. With a turnout like this...

Republicans had to know they were doomed.

[Vidar]

2. I saw four times as many voters at my polling place as I've

ever seen before. And as a baby boomer, let me applaud the younger generation that probably won this election for us.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. This is wonderful news...BUT..65.7% of registered voters is still not as high as it should be.

In actuality only a little more than half of the eligible voters in this country actually voted...


The voting age population in the US is 231,229,580

People who actually registered = not available

136,600,000/231,229,580 = 59% of eligible voters actually voted


eligible registered voted turnout
2004..... 221,256,931.... 174,800,000.... 122,294,978... 55.3
.........................79% of eligible

[applegrove]

4. It beats 1908 because women couldn't vote in 1908 and blacks were

scared into not voting.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. K&R