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Voter turnout highest since 1968 Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/1104nation/04polturnout.htmlhttp://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/1104nation/04polturnout.html
Voter turnout highest since 1968
By JAMES RAINEY
Los Angeles Times
Published on: 11/03/04
Young people and social conservatives helped drive a large increase in voting rates Tuesday, producing what analysts said was the highest U.S. turnout since 1968.
When about 5 million still outstanding absentee and provisional ballots are counted, an estimated 119.8 million Americans will have cast ballots in the contentious presidential contest, said Curtis Gans, director of the Washington-based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.
Commentators had predicted the emergence of new voters would benefit Sen. John Kerry, but Republicans appeared to have been even more successful at getting their new voters to the polls. Those conservatives served as the bedrock of President Bush's margin of victory, which exceeded 3 million votes.
The predicted 59.5 percent turnout would exceed every election since 1968, when 60.8 percent of voting-age Americans went to the polls to choose between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey at the height of civil rights protests and the Vietnam War. In the intervening 36 years, the 1992 three-way contest among former President Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot produced the other notable spike in voting — with turnout hitting 55 percent.
Tuesday's turnout apparently fell short of the 1960 benchmark, when about two-thirds of eligible voters took park in the contest between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon.
Commentators said difficult economic times and Bush's polarizing presidency helped provide much of the motivation that drove voters to the polls. But another factor also was responsible: the massive get-out-the-vote efforts by Bush's campaign and by an alliance of organizations supporting Kerry.
"The enduring legacy of the 2004 election is to demonstrate the potency of voter mobilization efforts," said Donald Green, a Yale University political science professor. "Now that both parties have seen how this can work, we can expect it to be a staple of elections from here on out.
"Ross Perot joining in three-way debates or Bill Clinton playing his saxophone on television were more ephemeral events," added Green, author of "Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout." "But this year we have rediscovered the power of old-fashioned get-out-the-vote efforts."
Turnouts were particularly substantial in states where Bush and Kerry spent most of their money on advertisements and field operations that assured many voters got multiple calls and visits from campaign workers. The percentage of voting-age Ohio residents casting ballots increased from 56.7 percent in 2000 to 65 percent; Wisconsin went from 67.6 percent to 74.7 percent; Florida from 55.9 percent to 63 percent; and Pennsylvania from 54.1 percent to 60.9 percent.
But even states that long ago were assumed to fall into one candidate's column turned out in larger numbers. Gans' organization reported that Florida and five other Southern states — Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia — recorded the highest voter participation rates since Reconstruction.
Those states have large populations of Christian conservatives, whose percentage of the electorate increased substantially from 2000. About 14 percent of voters that year described themselves as members of the "Christian right." A strictly comparable figure is not available this year although the broader category of self-described evangelical Christians made up 22 percent of voters this year, one exit poll reported.
Those voters preferred Bush for taking a firmer stand against abortion and gay marriage. They cast 76 percent of their ballots for the president.
"I think that tells a big part of the story of this election," Gans said, "which is that the Republicans targeted better and out-organized the Democrats with their base — fundamentalists, evangelists and rural voters."
As early exit poll projections of a strong Kerry showing began to slip away Tuesday, some commentators blamed young voters for not turning out in the numbers the Massachusetts senator had hoped.
In fact, voting by those age 29 and younger jumped markedly, from 15 percent of the electorate in 2000 to 20 percent this year, according to a Los Angeles Times exit poll. Younger voters picked Kerry by 55 percent to 43 percent over Bush, the poll found.
"A lot of people thought the youth vote would be the swing vote in the election," said Jay Strell, spokesman for the nonprofit Rock the Vote. "They weren't but they made it much closer than it would have been otherwise in some states and won some battlegrounds for Kerry."
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