Election-Campaign Law

Residual votes in 10 states: 6 increases over 2004

By Charles Stewart III

A few states have now published unofficial turnout figures along with their unofficial vote totals.  Here are the preliminary residual vote rates for AZ, DC, FL, HI, MI, MN, NH, ND, SD, and WY.  Unlike 2004, where almost every state experienced a significant drop in the residual vote rate (enough that 1m votes were “recovered”), several states are seeing increases.  For Michigan, it’s pretty substantial.

Count on these numbers to change as the counts become official.  Let us hope that some of these increases are due to incomplete reports.  However, it’s my experience that turnout reports tend to be updated after the returns, so I don’t think these numbers will drop very much.

The first number is the 2008 residual vote rate.  The second number is the 2004 rate.

AZ 1.1% (1.3% in 2004)

DC 0.2% (1.1%)

FL 0.7% (0.4%)

HI 0.4% (0.6%)

MI 1.8% (0.7%)

MN 1.1% (0.6%)

NH 1.7% (1.2%)

ND 1.4% (1.0%)

SD 2.5% (1.7%)

WY 0.5% (1.0%)

Full post as published by Election Updates on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).