Every state has finished compiling the votes cast for president, for the candidates who were on the ballot. Some states are still working on their write-in tallies. In six states, fewer votes were cast for president in 2008 than in 2004. They are Maine, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Overall, according to Curtis Gans, turnout in the U.S. was 63.0%. Gans calculates that 208,323,000 people could have voted if they had wished, although of course that would have meant that they needed to register. Gans calculates that 131,257,542 votes were cast for president, which yields the 63.0% figure. Gans calculates 60.6% for 2004, and 54.2% for 2000. This suggests that 2008 did not have a huge improvement in turnout. The 2004 gain in turnout (compared to 2000) was more dramatic than the 2008 turnout gain.
Curtis Gans has been working on turnout data for many decades, and is associated with American University.
Love that 208,323,000 6 digit flaming guess.
What percentage of the Elephants very unhappy with the AIRHEAD Palin for Veep who did NOT vote ???
What growing percentage of New Age MORON public school folks who can NOT read a registration form or a ballot ???
Oklahoma–I would like to think it is because they didn’t have many choices.
Some of the lack of turnout can be blamed on how badly the new parties campaigned.
One of the people who comment here is one who can take some of the blame.
People I know tried very hard to get connected with the so-called Constitution Party, and that commenter in particular, but never got responses.
The same is true for people I know who tried, in vain, to get into the Libertarian campaign.
Some of non-voting can be blamed on the nastiness of the campaign, such as name-calling (“AIRHEAD Palin,” for example).
Demo Rep Says:
December 18th, 2008 at 10:12 am
“What percentage of the Elephants very unhappy with the AIRHEAD Palin for Veep who did NOT vote ???”
Palin helped McCain. It was the socialist liberal McCain that caused so called conservatives to stay home.
Michael Morrison Says:
December 18th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Some of the lack of turnout can be blamed on how badly the new parties campaigned.
One of the people who comment here is one who can take some of the blame.
People I know tried very hard to get connected with the so-called Constitution Party, and that commenter in particular, but never got responses.
Baldwin got the most votes of any Constitution Party presidential ever despite being on the ballot in fewer states and not being on in the three largest states. Ballot access laws are more to blame than the candidates.
I recall news stories about Wisconsin students bragging in a prior election about voting multiple times. Anybody know if that state tightened up on such apparent vote fraud this time?