A record in Maine? Voter turnout could top 70%

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AUGUSTA – Voter turnout Tuesday probably exceeded 70 percent for the third time in the state’s history, the Secretary of State’s Office said Wednesday.

Final numbers will not be available for several days, but it seems likely that turnout approached or exceeded the 73 percent record set in 1992.

Turnout also exceeded 70 percent in 1960, when the hotly contested presidential race between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy generated intense interest.

The Secretary of State’s Office on Wednesday forecast that absentee ballot voting will set a state record this year.

“We’re delighted,” said Doug Dunbar, a deputy secretary of state.

Maine led the nation in voter participation in two of the past three presidential elections, Dunbar said, in 1992 and 1996. In 2000, Maine was second to Minnesota, with almost 68 percent.

This year, there appeared to be “an unprecedented number of absentee ballots” used in Maine voting, he said.

Final voting tallies are submitted by municipal clerks to the state over the course of the next few days.

Julie Flynn, another deputy secretary of state, said voter turnout is computed not from voter registration lists, which are often inflated, but from census numbers that include the number of eligible voters. In 1992, there were about 679,000 eligible voters in the state, she said.

This year, census figures, updated by the state Department of Health and Human Services, put the number of eligible voters at 1,018,000.

Flynn said there were few problems reported at polling places around the state Tuesday.

“It was maybe a little busier than the last presidential election,” she said. “We probably took in about 600 calls.” Many of those were questions about voting procedures in Maine from out-of-state staffers from the Democratic and Republican parties.

In Bangor, some voters called believing they had witnessed ballot clerks requesting voters to show identification in order to vote. In fact, Flynn said, those asked for identification were registering to vote.

“There was nothing of concern that was a widespread problem in any jurisdiction,” she said, and there were no reports of fraud or intimidation.

Small towns in Maine saw the presence of poll watchers for the first time this year, owing to the closeness of the presidential election.

Flynn said Maine law allows poll watchers from political parties to sit near ballot clerks to hear the names of voters stated as they check-in to vote.

The poll watchers keep a tally of those who vote so that later in the day they can call registered party members who have not voted and urge them to come to the polls or to arrange a ride to the polls.

Poll watchers can challenge a voter’s legitimacy if the poll watcher is registered to vote in that community, she said. The right of challenge exists for any registered voter, Flynn said.

Staff members and volunteers affiliated with the national presidential campaigns were evident at many polling places, she said.

“They had attorneys at a lot of places,” Flynn said.

Across the nation, a greater percentage of Americans voted than at any time in more than three decades.

Figures tabulated Wednesday by The Associated Press showed that 114.9 million people had voted with 99 percent of precincts reporting.

However, the total figure is closer to 117.8 million based on estimates of uncounted absentee and mail ballots in California, Oregon and Washington, said Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

Another 2 million votes remain, given incomplete tabulations in some states, provisional ballots and other absentee ballots, he said.

Gans put the total turnout at nearly 120 million people. That represents just under 60 percent of eligible voters – the highest percentage turnout since 1968, Gans said.

Four years ago, in the election that led to Republican George W. Bush’s narrow victory over Democrat Al Gore, slightly more than 54 percent of eligible voters, or about 105.4 million, voted.

President Clinton’s 1996 re-election bid drew just 49 percent of eligible voters, about 96.3 million. But his 1992 challenge to the first President Bush brought out 55.2 percent of eligible voters, or about 104.4 million.

Officials had eyes on whether Tuesday’s turnout would rival the 1960 benchmark, when about two-thirds of eligible voters came out to back either Democrat John Kennedy or Republican Richard Nixon.

At least six states – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – and the District of Columbia set voter-turnout highs, according to Gans’ analysis. Kentucky initially appeared to set a record for turnout, too, but more analysis showed that was not the case.

“On both sides, the presidency of George Bush was a lightning rod,” he said. “For those who supported him, they supported him for traditional values, strong leadership, the war on terrorism and some rejection of things that the Democrats advocate,” such as abortion rights and gay civil unions.

“On the other side, it was the war on Iraq, debt, the feeling he hadn’t been candid with the American people, too conservative values and division in the country,” Gans said.

An estimated 9 percent of voters Tuesday were 18 to 24, about the same proportion of the electorate as in 2000, exit polls indicated. The youth vote accounted for 17 percent of turnout when broadened to the 18-to-29 age group, also about the same share as in the last presidential race.

Still, the actual number of young voters was up, given that overall voter turnout was higher.

When it comes to voting, the United States still has some distance to go to match the participation of voters in other democracies. But by U.S. standards, Tuesday shaped up as an impressive show.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.