Posted on 11/09/2008 3:09:35 PM PST by pissant
Despite widespread predictions of record turnout in this year’s presidential election, roughly the same portion of eligible voters cast ballots in 2008 as in 2004.
Between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent of the 208.3 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, compared with 60.6 percent of those eligible in 2004, according to a voting analysis by American University political scientist Curtis Gans, an authority on voter turnout.
He estimated that between 126.5 million and 128.5 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, versus 122.3 million four years ago. Gans said the gross number of ballots cast in 2008 was the highest ever, even though the percentage was not substantially different from 2004, because there were about 6.5 million more people registered to vote this time around.
The historic candidacy of President-elect Barack Obama, as well as the emphasis his campaign put on early voting and Election Day turnout, led many media and academic pundits to speculate that voter turnout this year would increase dramatically. In the run-up to the vote, even John McCain’s top pollster, Bill McInturff, joined other experts in predicting that turnout might surpass 130 million.
In 2004, turnout was 6 percentage points higher than in 2000. But Gans said he believed it did not spike more this year because fewer Republicans went to the polls. While it may be premature to draw conclusions, Gans said, it appeared that Republican voting declined 1.3 points, to 28.7 percent of the electorate, while Democratic turnout rose from 28.7 percent to 31.3 percent of the electorate.
The Democratic increase struck some analysts as modest, considering the party’s immense get-out-the-vote operation, strong anti-Bush sentiment and Obama's popularity.
“It sort of calls into question some of the vaunted ground game discussion, the whole turnout machine,” said a Democratic strategist who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing Obama’s campaign. “The GOTV effort was redoubled in 2008 compared to 2004, but it did not seem to make that big of a difference.”
Gans said that record disapproval of President Bush, the global financial crisis and surveys showing that three in four Americans believe the nation is on the “wrong track” contributed to the relatively high turnout this year.
“When you have that backdrop, you will get a rise in turnout, but it’s not durable,” Gans said. “We have a long-term disengagement problem that will not be solved by a singular election.”
But Obama's historic candidacy probably was responsible for bringing more youths to the polls this year, and it also helped explain what Gans said was the apparently significant rise in African-American turnout. Exit polls found that blacks constituted 13 percent of the electorate, a 2 percentage-point gain over 2004, Gans said; the increase may be even more than that, he said.
Still, some key states saw a decline in overall voter participation.
In Ohio, which has had aggressive GOTV campaigns in the past two presidential cycles, the number of voters appeared to decline from 5,722,443 in 2004 to 5,595,966 in 2008, according to the final but unofficial tally by the Ohio secretary of state. Turnout in those years dropped from 72 percent to 67 percent.
In Pennsylvania, 5,851,730 voters cast ballots with 99.8 percent of votes counted — a rise of nearly 690,000 voters over 2004, according its secretary of state. But due to higher registration, the percent of eligible voters who cast ballots dropped from 68.96 in 2004 to 66.8 this year.
Official turnout numbers are not yet available. Gans, whose calculations were based on the AP’s unofficial vote count and actual votes certified by a state’s chief election official, said that 22 states posted an increase in turnout. The largest increases were in North Carolina, where turnout rose 9.4 points, and Georgia, where it rose 6.7 points, he said. Both states have large black populations. The highest turnouts overall occurred in Minnesota, where nearly 76 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, and in Wisconsin, where 71 percent of those registered voted.
Voting in the past two presidential elections topped 60 percent — higher than in many previous cycles. The last time voter participation routinely broke 60 percent was in the 1950s and '60s. In 1996, barely half of voters cast ballots.
Nationally, the 2008 voter turnout was roughly equivalent to 1968 in percentage terms. Gans said that when taking into account the disenfranchisement of blacks, this year’s turnout was below the 1960 and 1964 presidential campaigns. For example, if blacks had been allowed to vote in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race, he said, turnout probably would have reached about 67 percent, as opposed to the official Federal Election Commission tally of about 63 percent.
Interestingly, Gans found that state efforts to make voting more convenient — for instance, through programs for early or mail-in voting — did not significantly boost turnout. Of the 14 states with the largest turnout increases, only six had so-called convenience voting initiatives, while in the 13 states with the greatest decline in voting, 12 had some form of convenience voting.
I think Bob Dole gets maligned too much. He’s ain’t the greatest, but I’d rather have him than McCain.
Nope. It would seem that Christians either stayed home or voted for Obama! I couldn’t believe it but somewhere on my church notice last Sunday it actually asked, “Got Hope?” My party has left me, the Episcopal church left me nearly 26 years ago,now another churxch is leaving me?
Damn, if that's not the truth!!
Could we say that running someone who has made a virtue of attacking conservatives and party faithful is not a brilliant strategy for Republican victories?
Could it be that constantly reaching across the aisle even when it means trashing the Constitution a la McCain Feingold does not make for great leadership from someone who swore to uphold the Constitution is not a winning formula?
This is Good News and gives me Hope.
It is clear people who would vote for the GOP Pres. candidate voted for the Democrat this time...for various reasons. Each one that can be overcome with proper organization and message management.
These facts just don’t seem to make any difference to some of the people here. They think you can take the same old reruns and get different results.
Well, the ONE thing for the 2010 and 2012 elections will be that the left cannot run on Bush’s Fault any more. These elections, it is going to be the Marxist’s results. I pray they fall flat on their faces.
Yeah, it didn't make sense to me either.
This woman has a daughter in Afghanistan and is married to a retired Army officer. The fact that she has gone all moon bat later in life just makes me sad.
Conservatives on the other hand stayed home, by the millions. A significant portion of the “conservative base” didn't feel like holding their noses when pulling the lever for McCain, but they're still out there to be tapped. A lot of those of us who did vote for McCain did so with the feeling that if this is the best we can offer, we're doomed. Unfortunately, so’s the rest of the country as well.
I believe that there are still more of “us” than “them”. When he and his recycled diversity cabinet finish f***ing it all up, there will be even more of us (Actually it'll be the retreads that make the mess, he's just the stage puppet whose image they rode into power).
Nothing like getting your entire industry, and having your 401K confiscated to energize the base. But we've got to get better candidates, and get our voters to the polls. Back to basics, but conservative basics.
So it was "stay home" and "turncoat" Republicans that put Obama "over the top," not a massive turnout of new Democrat voters. When are we going to learn that it is a numbers game - that you have to both turn out your base and keep fickle "independent" voters leaning Republican. The divisive games of the Primary campaign is what set the stage for this defeat. Sure the media drove the wedge, but the RNC did nothing to unify the GOP.
If it weren't for McCain picking Sarah Palin as the VP nominee, it would have been a major bloodbath.
The interesting thing about the percentages are even more eyebrow raising. The evangelicals (my crowd) came out and voted. The libertarians (also my crowd) were weaker, but still came out and voted. The Reagan democrat type republicans largely stayed home, or voted Obama (large group of these were Roman Catholics,48% of whom voted Obama, although the media education from the bishops was some of the best stuff on pro-life issues I have ever seen).
The blacks were a tsunami in the south and major cities, but you have to remember the blacks are only 12% of the populace across the nation. I worked the polls in NC and we had a bunch of blacks who ONLY showed up to vote Obama and had no idea what was going on otherwise. I do believe I convinced some of them to vote WHILE IN THE POLLING LINE for a downticket Republican running for Congress simply because he was disliked by the establishment Republicans (BJ Lawson has libertarian tendencies). I walked up to them, smiled, and said “you here to vote for CHANGE? Well, this guy is REAL change!” Then I told them he was pro liberty, pro civil rights, anti patriot act and anti bailout, anti incarceration of minor drug offenders, and a couple of local issues...., and many of them smiled and said they would vote for him. They were totally clueless on the political process and probably won’t vote again after Obama. It was totally symbolic for them and the fact that a black man was running was everything. The shame of that was that many of these people were not stupid punks and welfare losers (although they showed up in droves, too). Many were gracious, hard working black people. In fact, I worked a poll site next to a Democratic operative who was retired from the 82nd Airborne (blew out his knee on a jump), owned a small independent landscaping business, worked with his church helping men/kids who are involved in drugs to kick, find jobs, and develop self respect. I had great respect for him, although I was flabbergasted that he knew so little about Obama’s real history. His thing was that Bush is for the big power cronies (he was) and not the little man. He could not tell you what “capitalism” means, but he understands the difference between corporatism/mercantilism and true capitalism. It is a shame that good men like him are about to get hit with socialism, but I found it encouraging that not all blacks who voted for O are welfare whores. Some of them really just want “change.” I don’t blame them. I do too. Maybe after a few years the Republican party will get its head out of its -ss and wake up to the fact that there are lots and lots of folks like that who are ready to be pitched for FREEDOM, instead of manipulated by a few hackneyed phrases and some bible verses.
The numbers were not bad for pro-liberty people, although they were a disaster for neocons/rinos. I would say from the youth vote (68% Obama) that the numbers were pretty bad for the type of “conservative” who is brittle and obnoxious about the social issues and insistent that the federal government take the lead in addressing these issues. For those who want to see the Republican party become again the party of smaller government, strong defense but using our military only when attacked (or when attack is imminent), fiscal restraint, moral leadership without moral tinkering by the fed, and federal protection of personal liberties....., for those people, the possibilities are bright. Sarah Palin is an outstanding example of most of that. If Haley Barbour, her, Jihndal (sic?), and a few other solid folks could form a leadership council, the recent electoral blowout might be seen to be a one-shot deal.
President. n. the leading figure in a small group of persons of whom it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want them to be president. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
No. Registered Voters U.S.: 169 million
No. Voted for Obama 2008: 65.4 million
No. Voted for McCain 2008: 57.4 million
No. Did Not Vote 2008: 46.2 million
No. Voted for McCain or
Did Not Vote: 103.6 million
Percent voted for McCain or
Did Not Vote: 61.3%
I was not of voting age then...you had to be 21...but, there were marches with signage on the HS grounds, anyway. There was a huge effort to mobilize the youth that year.
Kennedy was a weak POTUS who served less than a term, due to someones arrangement of an assassination. Even loyal donks admitted, at the time, that he had not been a very good president.
All in all, the only reason anyone cites Kennedy is the aura of glamor that was created around him and his family and the concerted media adoration. The subsequent historical revisionism has perpetuated the fantasy image.
Was Obama’s vote total the highest ever ? Not that it matters when you consider increase in population etc. but I wish to know anyway : )
But how many Americans who are eligible to Register didn't even do that?
If the turnout wasn’t that high, that means Obama got a lot of turncoat votes. There sure are a lot of clueless voters. I get the impression that these same voters will be squawking the loudest when there’s double digit inflation and 20% loan rates and crisis after crisis, just like in Jimmy Carter’s administration.
How many voted for someone other than Obama or McCain? There were several third-party candidates (Libertarian, Green, etc.).
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