If there is one thing Americans can all agree on and be proud of after Tuesday's election, it is the large turnout at polls around the country.
Even before the first poll closed on Tuesday, news broadcasters were reporting on the long lines at polling stations where voters sometimes waited in line for hours to cast their ballot.
Athens County was not much different. Despite the rain and long lines at some polling locations, almost 28,000 people voted on Tuesday out of about 45,000 who were registered, according to the Athens County Board of Elections.
At about 62 percent, that is a 9.5 percent increase from the last presidential election.
Penny Brooks, deputy director at the Board of Elections, said the group has not had time to reflect on voter turnout because it is still busy processing results from the election.
Almost 7,000 more people registered to vote in Athens County since the May 2004 primaries, and voter turnout more than doubled.
Statewide turnout in Ohio -one of the most closely watched swing states -increased by more than 778,000 voters since the 2000 presidential election. Almost 5.6 million people voted in Ohio on Tuesday, nearly 70 percent of the almost 8 million registered voters. It was Ohio's highest turnout in a decade, according to The Associated Press.
Young voters turned out in record numbers according to The Associated Press, but because the overall turnout was also higher than usual, there was no significant difference in the percentage of young voters from the 2000 election. The widely sought-after demographic of 18-to 29-year-olds made up about 17 percent of voters.
With 99 percent of precincts reporting on the national scale, 105.4 million people voted, representing an increase in voters of about 9.5 million or nearly 6 percent. Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, told The Associated Press the total is closer to 117.8 million once all absentee and mail ballots are counted. Gans said that at nearly 60 percent, it was the highest percentage turnout since 1968.
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Lisa Schwerin
