Iowa’s Secretary of State Chet Culver released the official, unofficial numbers on the November second election today (Wednesday). The totals show President George Bush won the state by almost 10-thousand votes in what Culver says was a record turnout. He says 78-percent of active voters in Iowa voted on election day. Culver’s numbers come from county auditors, but he says the election day numbers won’t be official until November 29th. He says there were 112-thousand more people registered to vote compared to four years ago. There were one-point-five-million and 21-thousand go to the polls. Culver says thousands voters didn’t make a choice between Bush, John Kerry or the other candidates running for the highest office in the land. He says there were about 15-thousand that didn’t vote for president after voting for other state and local races. Or he says they overvoted. The overvoted ballots were not counted for president. Culver says the number of people who didn’t cast a vote for president is close to what experts say they find in other states. One national review ranks Iowa behind four other states for turnout, but Culver says otherwise. He argues that Iowa is number one, though the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate rates Iowa fifth. Culver says that committee ranks Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Hampshire as one, two and three, but he says they all have same-day registration. Oregan is ranked fourth, but Culver says they have voting by mail. Culver says part of the increase in voting is due to registration efforts. But he says it’s also because we’ve been in a six-year cycle that started with the Bush/Gore campaign and kept going. He says usually after an election, we see a lull. He says that was not the case after the 2000 election as the president started visiting in 2001, and then the democrats started visiting in 2001 too. Culver says eight of Iowa’s 99 counties had voter turnout of 80-percent or more — with Linn County the highest at 85-percent. Sixty-eight counties had turnout between 70 and 80-percent.
