2008 Unofficial Voter Turnout

Last updated: Nov. 9, 2008

My revised national turnout rate for those eligible to vote is 61.2% or 130.4 million ballots cast for president. This represents an increase of 1.1 percentage points over the 60.1% turnout rate of 2004, but it falls short of the 1968 turnout rate of 62.5%. Next year when the Census Bureau releases its Current Population Survey, Voting and Registration Supplement, it will be possible to get a good estimate of turnout rates among 18-20 year olds so that an apples-to-apples comparison can be made for turnout rates among eligible voters age 21 and older.

While further refinements on these turnout rates are certain, the potential error of this estimate decreases as states provide their unofficial election results and outstanding ballots to yet be counted. The national number reflects my best estimate of outstanding absentee, provisional, and write-in ballots that have not yet been tabulated into state numbers currently being reported by state election officials. Note that these numbers also include votes for minor party presidential candidates, which are not reported on most major media websites. There is room for increase, particularly among states that accept mail-in ballots with a Nov. 4 postmark which increased their number of outstanding ballots over the course of last week.

Note that some states do not release any numbers until they certify their election results. In these states, the number of voters is inferred from numbers provided by the Associated Press. For now, a dead placeholder link pointing nowhere exists for states that do not report unofficial results and have not yet reported their certified results. I will update these numbers as warrented if new information is released and update links to point to the certified results when they become available.

My initial estimate of 133.3 million ballots cast proved to be too high due to an over-estimation of absentee ballots outstanding in states that have in the past reported a smaller proportion of their mail-in ballots on election night. It may have been that more mail-in ballots were sent in earlier during the absentee voting period or that states and localities have improved the timeliness of their absentee ballot processing. Two high volume mail-in states, Oregon (all mail) and Washington (all mail except King and Pierce counties), apparently experienced turnout declines from 2004, which masked the error. However, I caution to wait until the final certified results in any state before drawing inferences about their turnout in the 2008 election as it may be that the initial reports do not include all ballots.

Assuming these statistics are correct, given the caveats above, Oregon and Washington appeared to suffer from a turnout decline similar to other states that lost their battleground status from 2004, further including Maine, West Virginia and Wisconsin (South Dakota's decline may be a consequence of the hot 2004 Senate race between Daschle and Thune which drew more votes than president in some counties). The largest turnout rate increases from 2004 were experienced in states that shifted onto the battleground, such as Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia. Other non-battleground Southern states such as Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina (and the District of Columbia) experienced turnout increases, perhaps a consequence of high turnout among African-Americans excited to vote for president-elect Obama. Turnout declines in deep red states such as Alaska and Utah may reflect less enthusiasm among Republicans for Sen. McCain.

Please see my FAQ for more information on the construction of the voting-eligible population (VEP) statistics. Note the state VEP numbers do not sum to the national number because I add in overseas citizens to the national number but not the state numbers. 

(Some outstanding ballot statistics used to estimate 2008 vote for president provided courtesy of the Associated Press Elections Unit.)