This quote, for instance, in the linked article: “In Pennsylvania, 5,851,730 voters cast ballots with 99.8 percent of votes counted — a rise of nearly 690,000 voters over 2004, according its secretary of state. But due to higher registration, the percent of eligible voters who cast ballots dropped from 68.96 in 2004 to 66.8 this year.”

If my interpretation is right, then this discussion is irrelevant and voter registration increases are the more important statistic.

Actually, we do get queues in this country, just less often. For example, several Cambridge polling stations with high student electorates had queues at the weirdest times in the 2005 General Election.

On the face of it thouhg there is evidence that the Obama campaign, at least, was successful at increasing the motivation of his supporters to vote, and particu;ar;y in the states that mattered.

For example, it was reported today that the turnout of hispanic voters (strongly pro-Obama) doubled in Colorado.

Overall it is clearly not the case that overall turnout is particularly better than in the US, but there is still much we can learn from the Obama campaign.

What an appalling system, then! To keep people waiting for hours in queues must massively favour the retired against the working, the childless against those with young children to look after. Not surprising the turnout was on the low side!

Without an exceptional candidate, bags of money, and perfect timing alongside the financial mayhem, the Democrats would have lost in 2008. If they don’t want to lose in 2012, maybe they shoud reform an electoral system which is biased aginst them.

is it true that the 62% turnout was of registered voters, or was it of all eligble adults? If the former then it would suggest that voter turnout was lower than the UK where a far higher percentage of the adult population is registered to vote.

One other issue is surely the electoral college system.

The three most populous states are California (safe Democrat), Texas, (safe Rep) and New York, (safe Democrat).

America has just the same focus on swing voters in swing districts in swing states as the British political system has on swing voters in swing constituencies.

Were the presidential election decided by the popular vote I am sure turnout would be higher because Republican voters in California and Democratic voters in Texas would have a greater incentive to vote as their vote would have counted just as much as those key ‘undecideds’ in the likes of Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia who decided the election. Plus Gore would have won in 2000!

Of course the electoral college system is part of the constitution and part of the wider system of checks and balances between large and small states. So there is almost no chance of it changing, but I have no doubt that it lowers turnout as millions of Americans have little meaningful say in the election of their president.

http://xcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/10/early-voting-exit-polls-and-demographic.html

So, he got his vote out early. That helped make it less likely that late negative campaigning would be effective.

Oh, and if his overall turnout is up, and the Democrats share of the vote is up, then the Democrats turnout is up, no? But, I think the big deal in this campaign was voter involvement through the web – as evidenced by the huge number of small donations Obama got. After all, who’s going to donate $25 then vote for the other guy?

I doubt that any of them will alter the fundamentals of election campaigning which some of the wilder commentators are suggesting.

There needs to be some care in analysing the results as well. For example looking at Indiana or Georgia may not be that instructive as the Democrat campaign there will have been at a higher level than in previous years.

Finally, Obama scored the greatest number of votes for any president ever. It’s a bit mean spirited to say this doesnt represent a good GOTV operation!

In Pennsylvania, 5,851,730 voters cast ballots with 99.8 percent of votes counted — a rise of nearly 690,000 voters over 2004, according its secretary of state. But due to higher registration, the percent of eligible voters who cast ballots dropped from 68.96 in 2004 to 66.8 this year.

it appears that we need to take into account the success (or otherwise) in getting people registered.

The article mentions a 4-6 million voter increase. If that was all on the 65 million Democrat vote, it’s a pretty major impact.

Other states (e.g. Indiana) seem to have more of an even swing with Obama gaining the same number of votes that McCain lost.

Irritatingly, most sources seem not to post turnout figures in the way that they woudl routinely do in a UK election.

Here, the registration form is a trivial name, address and declaration – there, you are asked much more.

Here, you just register as a voter. There, you need to register as a Republican or Democrat – or independent, but this is rarer.

Compare US turnout of registered voters with UK turnout of the same, they look pretty good.

Do we have figures on the relative turn-out of the Democrat and Republican vote – particularly in swing states?