Title: 2008 Voter Turnout - FactCheck.org
Headings: 2008 Voter Turnout
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2008 Voter Turnout
What Happened to All That Record-Turnout Hype?
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Content: 2008 Voter Turnout - FactCheck.org
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2008 Voter Turnout
By Lori Robertson
Posted on January 8, 2009
139
Q: Is it true that 36 percent to 37 percent of eligible voters failed to vote in the recent presidential election? A: Actually, the number is slightly higher than that: 38.4 percent of eligible voters didn’t cast a ballot for president in 2008. Even more — 39.9 percent — didn’t vote in 2006. Dr. Michael McDonald, an associate professor at George Mason University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has compiled voter turnout statistics on the national and state level since 1980. In the 2008 general election, 61.6 percent of the voting-eligible population cast a ballot for president, according to McDonald. In all, 132.6 million Americans voted. Some, but not all, states report total ballots cast, a figure that includes blank ballots or those with votes for multiple candidates for the same office.