Echoing my previous findings about voter abstention by collusion, Politico is surprised to find that the much vaunted turnout was a myth

Despite widespread predictions of record turnout in this year’s presidential election, roughly the same portion of eligible voters cast ballots in 2008 as in 2004.

Between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent of the 208.3 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, compared with 60.6 percent of those eligible in 2004, according to a voting analysis by American University political scientist Curtis Gans, an authority on voter turnout.

It seems registrations – real or not – were unprecedented, but not all showed up

gross number of ballots cast in 2008 was the highest ever, even though the percentage was not substantially different from 2004, because there were about 6.5 million more people registered to vote this time around.

And here comes my confirmation:

In 2004, turnout was 6 percentage points higher than in 2000. But Gans said he believed it did not spike more this year because fewer Republicans went to the polls

And here comes the shocker:

Still, some key states saw a decline in overall voter participation.

And you wouldn’t believe which states!

In Ohio, which has had aggressive GOTV campaigns in the past two presidential cycles, the number of voters appeared to decline from 5,722,443 in 2004 to 5,595,966 in 2008, according to the final but unofficial tally by the Ohio secretary of state. Turnout in those years dropped from 72 percent to 67 percent.

SCOTUS must be so disappointed! They wanted voters so badly in Ohio

And early voting didn’t help turnout

Interestingly, Gans found that state efforts to make voting more convenient — for instance, through programs for early or mail-in voting — did not significantly boost turnout. Of the 14 states with the largest turnout increases, only six had so-called convenience voting initiatives, while in the 13 states with the greatest decline in voting, 12 had some form of convenience voting.

But, but, I don’t understand – the new base of the party…

And this is quite an admission from a site, article which prints “historical candidacy” every other word.

Update

via PUmapac

c) The black vote made a huge difference; but young people did not.