This is completely unofficial, but looking at some of the returns the Journal is printing for Allen County with 294 of 301 precincts reporting, we can surmise the final turnout percentage.
Presidenital Election
  76,728 McCain/Palin
  69,934 Obama/Biden
   1,104 Barr/RootÂ
147,766 Total votesÂ
With 253,313 eligible voters, this gives us a turnout that will end up being a bit higher than 58.33%. Â Almost 24% higher than the Primary turnout. Â The debate will go back and forth – whether it was a galvanizing candidate, the worsening economic or just plain ol’ mounting feelings of discontent.
The difference in total votes between the Governor’s race and Presidential race is 2,643. Â So, there weren’t many voting for just Obama or McCain and not finishing their ticket. Â It will be interesting to see how this plays out across the country.
That’s almost identical to the 2004 turnout (58.4%) albeit with many more newly registered voters…
I’m going to try to get to the Board of Elections this afternoon to get whatever updated numbers they have. Makes you wonder what happened to those that dropped out.
Thanks for the info, Jeff. I was trying to find some numbers from 2004, but all I could find were the final results – nothing about registered voters at the time to do a percentage with.
In looking at what I wrote last night, I think I was a bit hasty. A difference of 2,643 turns in to a percentage of 1.78%. That’s pretty high. It wasn’t high enough to have carried Democrats Jill Long Thompson or Mike Montagano into office, but that’s still a good amount of people not finishing their ballots, or just simply ignoring races. It would be interesting to see the reasons for not finishing a ballot.