Voter turnout didn't set record

Democrats' passion wasn't matched by GOP

Turnout in last week's election increased from four years ago but fell far short of some forecasts largely because many Republican voters either stayed home or left blank the presidential section of their ballots.

In states won by President-elect Barack Obama, turnout was more than five percentage points higher than in states won by Republican John McCain, according to a Globe analysis of data compiled by a pair of researchers who study voting patterns in US elections.

Both Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate, and Michael McDonald, a professor at George Mason University, have conducted state-by-state reviews of unofficial returns, which are still being tabulated in many states. Each had predicted significantly higher turnout than materialized on Election Day.

"I looked at the significant increase in registration and the long lines at the early-voting polling places," said Gans, who has been studying turnout rates for 36 years. "It turned out the intensity was one-sided; it was on the Democrats' side."

McDonald concurred, saying, "It became more evident to voters at the end that Barack Obama was going to win. That probably tamped down the turnout and disproportionately affected the Republicans."

Both analysts said this would mark the third consecutive presidential election in which turnout among eligible voters increased, and Gans said it may be the highest turnout since 1964.

Gans and McDonald use slightly different methods to calculate the number of eligible voters, but both predicted a significant leap in turnout this year over 2004, when 122.3 million Americans voted for president. Gans had forecast a turnout of about 132 million, McDonald about 136 million.

As of yesterday, more than 127.1 million votes had been recorded in unofficial state tallies, many of which did not include some uncounted mail-in or provisional ballots, a Globe review of the websites of state election agencies showed. When the official counts are in, Gans said, the final tally may approach 129 million, which would be almost 62 percent of eligible voters, up from 60.6 percent four years ago but below the 1964 turnout rate of 64 percent of eligible voters under Gans's formula.

In counts posted as of late yesterday, Obama led McCain 67 million votes to 58.5 million, with 1.7 million votes cast for minor party candidates and write-ins. That is a popular-vote margin of about 6.7 percentage points.

Other factors, including down-ballot contests for congressional seats, state offices, and statewide ballot questions also might have affected turnout in some states.

While some states trumpeted high turnout figures based on the number of registered voters, neither Gans nor McDonald use voter registration figures as the basis for determining eligible voters because the quality and maintenance of current voter lists varies greatly from state to state. Both methods tweak in slightly different ways census data for voting-age citizens in all the states to derive their eligible-voter totals.

Each analyst cited North Carolina as the state with the largest increase over 2004 in turnout, by about 9 percentage points. A traditionally Republican state won by Obama after his campaign waged vigorous registration and get-out-the-vote operations, the state was one of many with large African-American populations that saw rising turnout this year. Other states included Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, all of which were won by McCain; and Virginia, Florida, and the District of Columbia, all carried by Obama.

In Indiana and Nevada, both reliably GOP states for decades, Obama won with major efforts over the airwaves and on the ground, and turnout increased by several percentage points in both states over 2004 figures, according to both analyses.

Turnout was also up nearly three percentage points from four years ago in Missouri, a Republican-friendly battleground state where Obama made inroads. As of yesterday, McCain's lead was 4,990 votes out of 2.9 million cast in the state, according to an unofficial tally on the secretary of state's website. If Obama overtakes McCain in the final official count in Missouri, it would raise to 10 the number of states carried by Obama that went for President Bush in 2004.

While turnout jumped in several normally Republican states won by Obama, it dipped slightly in Colorado, both studies found.

States that experienced a large drop-off in turnout included McCain's home state of Arizona, which he won; heavily Republican Utah; and Ohio, another GOP-leaning state that fell into the Obama column.

McDonald also projected a sharp decline in turnout in Alaska, where McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, is the governor. Gans did not include Alaska in his calculations because on election night the state had a huge number of uncounted absentee and early-voting ballots, which were still being tabulated yesterday.

As in past elections, Minnesota had the highest turnout rate - 78 percent, according to McDonald; 76 percent, according to Gans. With Obama winning easily, it was not a true presidential battleground state this year but did have a bitter US Senate contest, which is headed for a recount. Both Gans and McDonald, however, calculated turnout was slightly lower than in 2004, when it was a battleground state throughout the presidential campaign.