Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Election-Campaign Law Blogs -> Election Updates

Election-Campaign Law

: Election Updates

I lied: Some Tennessee numbers

By Paul Gronke

Sunday night, kids are in bed, so what's one more state? Tennessee does not have data files but they provide a fairly nice report on early voting. (No data on party breakdowns.)

In 2004, 485,850 Tennesseans cast primary ballots, for a total turnout of 14.29%. Of those ballots, 21.14% (102,695)were cast early and another 1% were cast absentee/by mail (it is really amazing that the absentee numbers are so low in Tennessee since it is a no-excuse state).

As of today, 95,903 votes have been cast already, almost as many as in all of 2004, and early voting continues for another six days!

What is fascinating to me is what we are to infer about turnout in Tennessee based on the early voting figures alone. Unfortunately, I do not have a day by day summary from previous elections. If I use the patterns in Florida as an indication, then we're looking at turnout in 2008 at least double , and probably higher, than seen in 2004.

The inescapable conclusion is that turnout in Tennessee--like Mike just wrote about South Carolina and like we are expecting in Florida--will be very high. If only I had the party numbers ...

Full post as published by Election Updates on January 28, 2008 (boomark / email).