yes, another politics post!
You know, I know it isn't entirely fair to call out the pundits on CNN for whatever they might have said at like 11:55pm on Tuesday, when they had been at it nonstop for the entire day, and the results were in, and we were all just waiting with bated breath for PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA (frisson!) to come out and speak. Still, one of them, and I'm
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Far be it for me to argue with my sister (ha!), but... that's not entirely accurate. I keep seeing people talk about record turnouts at the polls - and the long lines seem to support that - but the numbers don't agree.
In 2004, 62,028,285 people voted for Bush and 59,028,109 voted for Kerry, for a total of 121,056,394 votes (with 3rd-party candidates getting negligible numbers). At the time it was the most votes ever cast.
In 2008, 64,134,216 people voted for Obama and 56,555,649 voted for McCain, for a total of 120,689,865. (That's as of CNN's most recent updates.) Some states still have results trickling in, making it just barely possible that the 2008 totals for the two major parties will equal the totals from 2004 ( ... )
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans voted in unprecedented numbers in Tuesday's election, topping the record set in the 2004 presidential race by several million.
Experts differed on the scale of the voter turnout increase in their analysis.
Michael McDonald of George Mason University estimated that about 133.3 million people voted for president, based on preliminary results from the country's precincts tallied and projections for absentee ballots.
A more conservative estimate came from Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate at American University. He said the total votes could be between 126.5 million and 129 million.
Each vote total surpassed the count in 2004 when 122.3 million ballots were cast, the most ever for president.
With 97 percent of precincts reporting, The Associated Press figures showed about 121.5 million people had voted in the White House race.... )
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One thing is certain: the 2004 election definitely set the all-time turnout record, and 2008 seems to have at least equaled it.
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