Turnout Looks to Hit Century High

130M headed to polls as trends favored Obama

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 5, 2008 7:00 AM CST

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Turnout Looks to Hit Century High — The rising sun casts shadows of voters waiting to vote at a polling place at Venice Beach lifeguard headquarters in Los Angeles' Venice district Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Though the official percentage isn’t in, yesterday saw what could have been the highest voter turnout in a century, the Wall Street Journal reports. One expert foresaw 64% of Americans casting ballots, the AP notes, as some 30 million voted early, with 100 million more thought to have stormed the polls yesterday. That would tie or beat 1960’s high turnout, making it the largest since 1908, he said.

Voters responded en masse to a wave of enthusiasm and dissatisfaction with the country’s direction, the Journal suggests, and trends seemed to favor Barack Obama. Democrats had registered 461,000 new voters in Florida, where 4.3 million of 11.2 million registered voters voted early. Some 65% of Colorado voters sent in ballots early, 74% of registered voters were expected in North Carolina, and turnout in Ohio’s Cuyahoga county, home to Cleveland, look set to break 85%.
(More Election 2008 stories.)

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