Election Turnout Falls Short Of Forecasts

By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 16, 2008

Contrary to most expectations and predictions, initial numbers indicate that the percentage of registered voters in Maryland and the District who cast ballots in this year's election was in line with past presidential elections -- or in some areas actually dipped.

Make no mistake: More people cast ballots this year than in previous elections. But preliminary reports show that the numbers paled in comparison with a surge in voter registration that has taken place since the 2004 presidential election. Turnout as a measure of registrants who voted -- a standard way of calculating the figure -- did not show dramatic increases.

In Maryland, figures collected by the State Board of Elections late last week indicated a turnout of 76.38 percent of registered voters, a drop from 2004, when 78.03 percent went to the polls. And in the District, preliminary numbers indicated that the percentage of registered voters who turned out was a bit lower than in 2004 and 2000.

The same was not true in Virginia, a battleground state where the presidential campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) invested considerable energy getting out the vote. There, the number of registered voters went up, as did the percentage who cast ballots.

But Maryland and the District, securely in the Democratic camp, defied forecasts that the chance to vote for the nation's first black president would bring extraordinary numbers to the polls. Even where turnout was up, it failed in some cases to reach levels predicted by elections officials.

In heavily Democratic Montgomery County, about 23,000 more people voted than in 2004. Turnout as of Friday's count was hovering around 78 percent -- a drop since 2004 -- because the higher voting numbers did not keep pace with the 40,500 voters added to registration rolls in the past four years.

The increase was also a far cry from the almost 40,000 additional people who voted in 2004 compared with 2000.

There was lower turnout among registered Democrats and Republicans in Montgomery, election officials said.

Marjorie Roher, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery Board of Elections, said polls were busy in the morning but far less crowded in the afternoon than in past years. She said election officials are puzzling over the numbers, wondering why more people who had registered did not vote.

"It's a question -- why register to vote if you're not going to vote?" she said.

In Prince George's County, a majority-black and heavily Democratic jurisdiction that enthusiastically embraced Obama's candidacy, turnout rose from 2004 but did not come close to the 85 to 90 percent that had been predicted by election officials. And in Baltimore, which has similar racial demographics, turnout was a bit lower than in 2004.

"A lot of people were bracing for about 80 percent turnout, and it didn't happen," said Kenneth J. McGhie, general counsel for the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics.

McGhie said District officials don't have any theories to explain the numbers but noted that, as in other areas, polls that had long lines in the morning had none in the afternoon, something not seen in previous elections.

Experts caution against drawing too many conclusions from the figures. For one thing, although almost all absentee and provisional ballots have been counted, a small number in some counties have yet to be tallied.

And some stressed that examining turnout as the percentage of registered voters who cast ballots obscures the fact that more people voted this year. A study of preliminary figures by a professor at George Mason University has found that a larger percentage of eligible voters came to the polls this year nationally than in any year since 1968.

"This is still huge turnout in terms of absolute numbers," said John T. Willis, a former Maryland secretary of state and a professor at the University of Baltimore who examines turnout trends. "This is not something to worry about."

Dips from 2004 might not be surprising, some experts said, noting that turnout rose dramatically that year because many voters perceived the election between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) as whisker-close.

Still, vigorous discussions are taking place about why more registrants did not cast ballots in a historic election. Willis said his class dug into the numbers Wednesday evening. He noted that all indicators before the election pointed to the possibility of much higher turnout. There was record turnout in the February primary, record numbers of new registrants and record numbers of voters requesting absentee ballots.

Some experts said that the simplest explanation might be the most likely: Despite Obama's emotional pull, the fact that the campaigns spent so little time in uncompetitive Maryland and Washington meant that some voters who might have been lured to the polls stayed home.

"Maryland was ready, but there was just no activity going on," said Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote, which advocates abolishing the electoral college in favor of a national popular vote.

Although the Obama campaign opened several offices in Maryland, those operations were largely aimed at harnessing the enthusiasm of Marylanders to help sway voters in other states. Election Day phone calls aimed to get out the vote in other states.

"We're an exporting state -- candidates come here to raise money and get us to go elsewhere," Willis said, noting that the same is true for the District.

Another reason for unrealistic expectations about turnout might have been that some of those making the predictions were themselves caught up in Obama excitement, said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a Tufts University group that studies youth civic engagement.

Although some young voters in college were particularly engaged this year, Levine said, others were less enthusiastic. Levine recalled meeting with a group of 20-year-olds in Baltimore who were not enrolled in college. None in the group, all black, was registered or planning to vote, despite the historic election, he said.

"If you were close to the campaign and enthusiastic about Obama, it felt to you like this was a electoral tsunami," Levine said. "That was not true for everyone."