Where Did The Votes Go?

[Kahuna 172]

I just checked the statistics for the 2008 and the 2004 elections. They appear to differ from what the media is telling us.

 

Here they are:

2008: Barack Obama - 63,551,185

John McCain - 56,173,760

Total - 119,754,945

 

2004: George Bush - 62,040,610

John Kerry - 59,828,439

Total - 121,869,049

 

These totals came from independent internet sources you can Google and do not include the minority pary candidates. So my question is this: Obama only got a million more votes in 08 than W did in 04. McCain only got 3 million less than Kerry in 04. The total number of votes this year is actually 2 million less than in 04. So, where is this phenomenal number of new voters the media has been talking about? Who were in all those lines we saw winding around buildings for weeks?

 

I'm not suggesting anything sinister here, like stolen votes or anything. But it's interesting how different it is from the media coverage of the election.

[scoutingagain 20]

MSNBC currently has the following posted

 

Obama 64,417,303

 

McCaine 56,736,505

 

 

 

with 98% of the votes counted.

 

 

I suspect the initial numbers did not include all the Democrats that voted Wednesday.

 

SA

[AlFansome 10]

 

Yeah, Kahuna, the numbers are conflicting.

 

If you look at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php or http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008#Grand_total then you'll see a 148 million number for turnout, even though the same pages only have about 121 million votes for Obama + McCain combined.

 

Not sure where the other 27 million votes went.

[Lisabob 13]

Actually I have a bet riding on whether or not the final tally will top 130 million so I've been paying close attention to this. Most of the early reports of voter turn out were statistical models and in part because of the early voting phenomenon this year (first time we've done that in any big way) it was harder to get the models right. To complicate matters, not all states appear to be including some or all of their early vote totals in their tallies at this point, and some states are also still sorting through however many "provisional" and absentee ballots were cast. And then there are states that are having some "issues." Washington and Oregon have only reported 67% and 79% of their vote totals, respectively. Missouri, still "too close to call," is apparently not being included in some news outlets' vote totals yet.

 

It is entirely possible that the totals will go up by another few million before all is said and done. But, yes, there have been some rather breathless media reports that would have benefited from a healthier does of fact checking, too.

 

ETA: Don't forget that several million people voted for third party candidates too. As a percentage of overall votes that's not a whole lot, in terms of pure voter turnout, they should be included. Most news networks only report votes for the Dems and Reps though.(This message has been edited by lisabob)

[Lisabob 13]

Just did the third party math. It turns out my "several million" comment was a little optimistic, as current estimates are showing approximately 1.5 million votes for all third party candidates combined.

[CalicoPenn 729]

It may be considered "parsing", kind of in the manner of "depends on what the definition of is is", but "new" does not necessarily have anything to do with "more". I think the statistics you are looking may not be the correct stats to look at for the term "new". Though I haven't taken the time to try to look up the stats so am not stating this as based on any kind of fact, it could be possible that the number of 18-21 year olds that voted in 2008 is much higher than the number of 18-21 year olds that voted in 2004, and if that's the case, the statements about the high number of new voters could be considered true.

[Gunny2862 11]

Sure but if your parsing scenario is true then what happened to all of the prior voters who didn't go to the polls(for those numbers to work as you are parsing them someone had to not show up) - was there an incredible amount of "unseen" apathy?

 

In this state at least there was so much polarization I don't know or know of any one who could vote who didn't(above the age of thirty).

[Lisabob 13]

Hey Gunny, I have relatives who live in your state and they told me they didn't plan to vote. They are older, conservative, unwilling to vote for any Democrat but disgusted with McCain and unsupportive of Palin due (I think) in large part to her gender, not her politics.

 

Now are they representative of a large group of people? Hard to tell at this point with not enough data to successfully mine. I'm still waiting for a lot of raw data to come in so we can better answer the questions Calico raises. But sure, there are people who simply didn't vote this time even though they normally would, and it does appear those folks are more likely to have been on the Republican side this time around.

[funscout 11]

I think LisaBob is correct that some Republicans did not vote for president this year. McCain was not the best choice for our party, and I can see some people not voting at all since they wouldn't vote Democrat, but didn't want to support McCain, either.

[Gunny2862 11]

Well, that makes sense I guess.

 

But I can't even consider not voting at all - I worked too hard too long to safeguard peoples rights to vote(although I guess that would include the right not to). If I were that disgruntled I'd waste a vote on a third party candidate to send a message - and encourage any and all who felt like me to do the same rather than not vote at all.