Voter suppression - What happened to the 'Record Turn-out'?

Vanity | 2008-11-06 | Jerod

[jerod]

Pre-election headlines declared 'Record Turn-out Expected' with expectations of possibly 130 million or more voters showing up to vote.

What happened to that notion?

With counting still on-going, there are a million less votes than there were in 2004 and only 121 million in total.

Did exaggerated poll numbers and the promise of long lines discourage voting?

[jerod]

The press and pollsters were fully complicate in discouraging voting.

Mandatory voting laws would discourage such practices in in any future elections, and you might also consider eliminating party identification when registering to vote. That would eliminate ACORN and other like groups from getting money from individual campaigns to register certain types of voters.

Just a couple of thoughts...

[phothus]

It was part of the effort to discourage our side. Huge turnout predictions, outrageously big gaps in the polls due to those predictions and just general gloom and doom for us is what did us in.

the fortunate thing is that this shows that there hasn’t been a major realignment in the parties - instead, we got about he same number of new votors into the system as before, Obama got them and his own base to show up - We didn’t. It’s as simple as that.

[Red Badger]

Mandatory voting laws

Perish the thought...............

[Fido969]

Obam’s “historic acheivement” showed he didn’t get many more votes than the supposed “worst president in history” George W Bush.

Take heart, maties, the country doesn’t love these leftist radicals as much as the MSM is trying to make you believe.

[IrishMike]

Bingo !!!!!!
And it worked, a lot of our side stayed home

2004 GW Bush 62,028,286
JF Kerry 59, 028,109
Total 121,056,394

2008 BH Nobama 63,093,832
J McCain 55,851,014
Total 118,944,846

[bfh333]

The only voter suppression that happened was self-imposed. People on BOTH sides practiced it... “Why go to the polls if we are going to win so big” -or- “Why go to the polls if we're going to get our a$$ kicked”...

Me personally, I don't care if the person I'm voting for is up OR down in the polls by 20 points. I'm freaking going...

I'm sure everyone on FR dashed to their polling place and ignored the MSM...

[dilvish]

A two year election cycle featuring lots of candidates that even their base found annoying damaged the turnout. And low turn out is the norm in this country, even if we’d achieved that “record” 130 million turn out it still would have put us around 50%. When election time rolls around we are a lazy people.

[InterceptPoint]

I haven’t checked the numbers lately but I do believe that it was a record turnout for Democrats. Unfortunately, McCain couldn’t come close to matching the Bush 2004 turnout so we lost. Too many Republicans either stayed home or became Independents or Democrats. Probably a mix of both these factors.

[BigEdLB]

Right Now

2008 : 121,148,010

2004 : 122,293,548

There are uncounted absentees in a lot of states. Maybe 2,000,000 or so. But still 123,000,000 is only 1,000,000 more than 2004, and a far cry from the 130,000,000 the propogandists from the evening Pravdas were yammering about

[gotribe]

Our precinct, heavily republican, had 80.5% turnout.

[KavMan]

I think I saw a few places saying that they estimate when the voting is counted that it will be about 133 million.

Is that possible?

[jimfree]

Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded!

[Maverick68]

Political Correctness kept us from putting the true message about Hussein out to the masses. We must destroy the media and Political Correctness.

[Ingtar]

A little more complex... Catholics jumped ship and cost us NC, VA, OH, a shot at PA and NJ, and IN.

The very RINOS that brought us McCain jumped ship when he picked Sarah. Of course, the carnage would have been worse without her.

[I see my hands]

"Take heart, maties, the country doesn’t love these leftist radicals as much as the MSM is trying to make you believe"

I'm speechless. You should be.

[Alberta's Child]

I wouldn't place all the blame on the media and pollsters here. As far back as 2007 I predicted that voter turnout in this election would be relatively low (and I'm surprised it was as high as it was).

Even before I knew who the two major candidates would be, I saw this election as little more than a choice between AIDS and ebola -- and figured a lot of people simply wouldn't be very enthusiastic about making a decision like this.

[Fawn]

Who cares anymore....you know we had to let them win anyway....to prevent year long riots.

[tx_eggman]

Mandatory voting laws

You're kidding, right?

[Reagan Man]

There was no fresh appeal for the GOP this time around, leading to a significant amount of Republicans who switched sides and voted for Obama.

OTOH. Rather then vote for McCain, many conservatives chose to stay home on election day. Including many members of the Religious Right. Otherwise, the total vote would have far exceeded the 122 million votes cast in 2004.

[RetSignman]

THIS HAPPENED!!!

[Redleg Duke]

Don’t forget all of the “principled conservatives” who wanted to “send a message”!

[LdSentinal]

I'm guessing around 125 million voted.

There are several million absentee ballots yet to be counted.

[expatpat]

Or did they avoid counting the votes from conservative areas? Just asking...

[bfh333]

Yes... My favorite conservatives... the one's that want to “teach them a lesson”...

What lesson have we learned? That we can give the House and Senate away while we are still principled! That's a laugh!

The time to kill the RINO’s in the the primaries... Once the general election comes around, hold your nose and VOTE! I live in GA and I damn well voted for Saxby “Shamless”... Cause there was NO WAY I was “going to send a message” by splitting my ticket and voting for a 60 seat Senate...

[showme_the_Glory]

What happened to the 'Record Turn-out'?

They voted, but they were for McCain and had to be destroyed :-) It was another stolen election.

[1L]

How many absentee ballots weren’t counted in 2004 since they weren’t needed?

[LdSentinal]

I’m guessing they counted all those ballots.

[FreeAtlanta]

lol, John McCain was voter supression. I know several people who would not have voted had it not been for Sarah Palin. And, I probably would have joined them if he had chosen Joe Liberman or some moderate or lefty. To many, even Sarah wasn't enough to motivate them to vote for McCain. The economic bailout and having him sign onto it was critical in causing a lot of conservatives to stay home.

Saxby Chamblis would have won easily, had he voted against it.

[Steve Van Doorn]

i don’t understand it I never seen such long lines before.

[1L]

I wouldn’t think so.

[KriegerGeist]

In Virginia the NAACP sued the gov. Kaine to keep polls open until 10:00 p.m. so the record turnout could vote. Blacks did not want to be disenfranchised... Turns out, somewhere in the neighborhood of 66%-67% is all that turned out. Less than 2004 and way off the the record Clinton vs Bush Sr. @ 82%

Bottom line: most of the conservatives stayed home and the big Democrap turnout wasn't such a huge cowpie as a handfull of goat-turds.

[rideharddiefast]

With counting still on-going, there are a million less votes than there were in 2004 and only 121 million in total.

Simple to understand. There was NO Republican on the top of the ticket. Only a liberal running against a socialist.

[rideharddiefast]

Don’t forget all of the “principled conservatives” who wanted to “send a message”!

It is called tough love. Hopefully the message will be heard and Republicans will start to behave and vote like Republicans. When that happens we will be able to gain back control. Until then there is no reason to work to get more democrats with an R behind their name into office.

[Redleg Duke]

You better hope we get another chance to vote, buddy!

[bfh333]

Hopefully the message will be heard and Republicans will start to behave and vote like Republicans

Yes, hopefully... In the mean time, while we are practicing "tough love", We can all watch the US go down the tubes... But we'll all feel GOOD about voting those damn RINO's out by electing a freaking dim...

[rideharddiefast]

But we'll all feel GOOD about voting those damn RINO's out by electing a freaking dim...

There in not much of a difference between a liberal R and a dim. This way though the dimwits will have to take the blame. When Republicans start to act like Republicans again they will again gain control.
America survived four years of Carter, we will survive four with Osama. Maybe then Republicans will decide to act and vote like Republicans