A Democrat to challenge Richard Burr is going to need a large chunk of white voters, the PPP says today.

WASHINGTON – Enthusiasm among blacks and Democrats for Barack Obama’s candidacy pushed voter turnout in this year’s elections to the highest level in 40 years.

Final figures from nearly every state and the District of Columbia showed that more than 131 million people voted, the most ever for a presidential election. A little more than 122 million voted in 2004.

This year’s total is 61.6 percent of the nation’s eligible voters, the highest turnout rate since 1968, when Republican

Richard M. Nixon defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey, said Michael McDonald, a political science professor at George Mason University. States finished certifying their election results this weekend, including California on Saturday. The Electoral College was scheduled to elect Obama president on Monday, with electors meeting in each state to vote in a largely ceremonial procedure.

Turnout increased for the third straight presidential election, encouraging news for those who have warned about voter apathy. Four years ago, 60.1 percent of those eligible voted.

“We seem to have restored the levels of civic engagement that we had in the 1950s and 1960s,” McDonald said. “But we didn’t break those levels.”

McDonald calculated turnout rates based on the number of eligible voters among adult U.S. citizens. Experts calculate turnout rates in different ways based on whom they consider eligible voters, a process that excludes noncitizens and, in most states, convicted felons.

Regardless of the method, turnout fell short of many predictions, in part because voters in some Republican areas of the country were not as enthusiastic this year with Sen. John McCain as the party’s nominee as they were four years ago when President George W. Bush won a second term.

Bush’s unpopularity after eight years in office, the nation’s fatigue with the Iraq war and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression – coupled with Obama’s message of change – contributed to the increased turnout for Obama. He was also helped by a surge in black voters, who had the opportunity to elect the first black president.

The number of registered Democrats jumped in many states, helping to propel Obama to a larger share of the vote than Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, in 44 states and the District of Columbia.

Early voting hit a new high, with about 41 million people – or more than 31 percent – voting before Election Day, either by mail or at designated sites, according to returns compiled by The Associated Press. Early voting accounted for 22 percent of the votes cast in 2004.

The Obama campaign invested heavily in early voting, and it appeared to be the difference in several states, though many of those people might have eventually voted on Election Day.

Voter turnout increased substantially in newly competitive states such as Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina, which all went for Obama after decades of favoring Republican presidential candidates. Turnout also increased in some Republican states with large black populations, such as Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia.

North Carolina, which had competitive elections for president, governor and Senate, had the biggest increase in turnout, from 57.8 percent in 2004 to 65.8 percent this year.

“I don’t know that we did anything different than in other states, but the magnitude was so different,” said North Carolina Democratic Chairman Jerry Meek. “We were the only state in the country with a nationally targeted presidential race, gubernatorial race and Senate race.”

Obama won North Carolina by 14,177 votes, out of more than 4.3 million cast. In the Senate race, Democrat Kay Hagan beat incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole. Beverly Perdue was elected the state’s first female governor.

Minnesota, with a competitive Senate race that still hasn’t been decided, had the highest turnout rate, even though it dropped slightly, to 77.8 percent. It was followed by Wisconsin, Maine, New Hampshire and Iowa.

West Virginia and Hawaii tied for the lowest turnout rate, at 50.6 percent. Arkansas, Utah and Texas came close.

In all, the turnout rate increased in 33 states and the District of Columbia.

Turnout dropped in some states that did not have competitive presidential contests, such as Utah and Oregon. Oregon had been a battleground in previous presidential elections and the state had a competitive Senate race.

On November 4th, a referendum known as Proposition 8 was on the ballot for California voters.  People all across the nation participated, despite it being a California-only measure.

By MARSHA MERCER
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama’s picks for his Cabinet are reassuring because they have Washington experience – unless they’re disappointing for that very reason.

It depends on where you’re standing. Inside-the-Beltway types are relieved to see a familiar cast of characters returning to power, even if they disagree with some previous policies.

Many voters, in contrast, hold the romantic notion that Ordinary Joes should come to Washington, roll up their sleeves and clean house. The “experts” in Washington have messed things up royally. Besides, didn’t Obama promise change?

Whether you’re reassured or disappointed by Obama’s Cabinet choices, though, one thing is clear. Washington experience is “in” again. It never really was out. A president has to deal with Congress to get his policies enacted, and that takes skill and knowledge of the ways of Washington.

Obama is assembling a practiced team of congressional and federal government officials to help run the administration. He started with his running mate Joe Biden, a six-term Senate veteran. Biden was at Obama’s side Monday, when Obama said “Vice president-elect Biden and I are pleased to announce…our economic team…”

Obama used the word experience half a dozen times at the news conference. He said he’s bringing together “the best minds in America to guide us” through the global economic crisis. Catch that? “Guide us.”

That’s about as close anyone in power in Washington ever comes to admitting he doesn’t have all the answers and needs help finding them. It’s a surprising admission after a campaign in which for two years Obama finessed his short tenure on Capitol Hill and brilliantly made lemonade from the lemons of his inexperience.

The change reflects the gravity of the challenges ahead. He stresses constantly that the economic crisis is historical and global.

When he picked Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary, Obama said the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York “offers not just extensive experience shaping economic policy and managing financial markets; he also has an unparalleled understanding of our current economic crisis in all of its depth, complexity and urgency.”

It didn’t hurt that Geithner, 47, formerly at Treasury and the International Monetary Fund, has lived and worked internationally and has studied Japanese and Chinese.

Obama’s choice for White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, was deputy chief of staff under President Bill Clinton. In his role as No. 4 Democrat in the House, Emanuel was known as a fierce partisan fighter. But Obama said when he picked Emanuel, “No one I know is better at getting things done.”

In the wings are Sen. Hillary Clinton, former first lady and presidential rival, for secretary of State; former Senator and U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson for secretary of Commerce; and former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle to head Health and Human Services.

Last February, Hillary Clinton said in a Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in Cleveland, “We’ve seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We cannot let that happen again.” Presumably, she’s feeling better about Obama at the helm now.

As if responding to those who worry that installing Clintonites in his Cabinet is a retread of the 1990s, Obama frequently reminds that change won’t come overnight, and he warns that there are no shortcuts to fix the economic crisis. He said he wants in his team a blend of “sound judgment and fresh thinking.”

Obama promises to hit the ground running to stave off predicted waves of layoffs. The first test will be whether he can get his economic stimulus package enacted right away. Without providing an estimate of its size or scope, he says it will address the foreclosure crisis, help the auto industry, create 2.5 million jobs by 2011, rebuild roads and bridges, modernize schools and create clean energy. Estimates start at $500 billion to $700 billion and up.

Obama’s vision of a can-do America may help quell people’s anxiety while the wonks come up with strategies to navigate these perilous storms. Wall Street liked what it heard about the new Cabinet. The market closed up more than 350 points Monday. Washington experience is good.

A number of losing Republican candidates in last week’s election are blaming their defeats on Democrats who voted a straight ticket ballot.

The reality is that Republican voters chose a straight ticket in almost the same proportion as Democratic voters.

There are 4,870,261 voters in North Carolina registered with one of the two major political parties. Of those 2,867,453 are registered Democrats, or 58.9 percent.

In last week’s election 2,128,983 voters cast a straight ticket either for the Democrats or Republicans (Libertarians are excluded from this analysis.) Of the major party straight ticket voters 1,264,076 were Democrats, or 59.4 percent.

So Democrats make up 58.9 percent of major party registrants and made up 59.4 percent of major party straight ticket voters. That paltry disparity is a lacking excuse for why Republicans lost major offices, particularly given that candidates in low information races like Steve Troxler and Cherie Berry were able to weather the tide.

CNN — Barack Obama had a formidable online presence during his quest for the White House, and he is once again turning to the Internet to communicate with the American public as president-elect.

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Preliminary results from a national Associated Press exit poll of voters in Tuesday’s elections:
     
      THE ECONOMY DOMINATES
      Six in 10 voters picked the economy as the most important issue facing the nation. None of four other issues on the list – energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care – was picked by more than one in 10.

Not surprisingly, voters also have a very sour view of the condition of the nation’s economy. About half said it’s poor and nearly all the rest said it’s not good.

At least four in 10 said their family’s financial situation has gotten worse in the past four years. A third said it’s about the same and about a quarter said it’s gotten better.

Looking ahead, half of voters said they’re very worried the current economic crisis will harm their family’s finances over the next year and another third were somewhat worried about that. But nearly half said they think the nation’s economy will get better over the next year.
     
      OTHER WORRIES
      Two-thirds of voters said they’re worried about being able to afford the health care they need. And at least as many said they worried there will be another terrorist attack in the United States.
     
      NEW VOTERS
      One in 10 voters said they were voting this year for the first time, and they were disproportionately young and nonwhite. Six in 10 of those voters were under age 30. One in five new voters were black and about as many were Hispanic. A quarter of new voters said they don’t have landline phones at home, only cell phones.
     
      BUSH AND CONGRESS
      As they have in pre-election polls, President Bush and Congress get low marks from voters. Only about one in five approve of how Bush is handling his job, and Congress fared no better.
     
      OTHER ISSUES
      Six in 10 voters said future appointments to the Supreme Court were an important factor in their vote.
      Two-thirds favor drilling for oil offshore in U.S. waters where it is not allowed now.
      More than half oppose the $700 billion government plan to help failing financial companies.
     
      DEMOGRAPHICS
      As usual, women were a little more numerous than men in the electorate.
      About one in seven voters were under age 30 and as many were over 65.
      A third reported household income of less than $50,000; a quarter had income of more than $100,000.
      One in five had no more than a high school diploma; nearly half had a college degree.
      One in four voters were white born-again evangelical Christians.
      Nearly half of voters have a gun in their household.
      —
      The results are based on a preliminary, partial sample of more than 2,400 voters in Election Day exit polls and telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.

Lines stretched around buildings and crossed city blocks as people waited to cast ballots in the historic presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain. Touchscreen voting machines malfunctioned in some precincts, yet voting Tuesday appeared to go smoothly overall.
 
The biggest trouble was big crowds. But folks seemed to take it in stride.

“People are happy and smiling,” Sen. Benjamin Cardin said as he voted at a Maryland school. “People are very anxious to be voting. They really think they are part of history, and they are.”

In the East, electronic machine glitches forced some New Jersey voters to cast paper ballots. In New York, eager voters started lining up before dawn, prompting erroneous reports that some precincts weren’t opening on time.

In the West, Californians also faced long lines, but voting went smoothly. In Orange County, south of Los Angeles, about 400 people were on hand to treat problems with the county’s all-electronic voting system, said Brett Rowley of the registrar’s office.

“We’ve got paper ballots as a backup,” he said.

Heavy rain plunged a handful of Los Angeles polling places into the dark, forcing some to move voting booths outside until electricity was restored. Voting didn’t stop.

Election officials predicted turnout rates as high as 80 percent in California, the country’s most populous state and the highest holder of electoral votes. In Virginia, State Board of Elections executive secretary Nancy Rodrigues said she expected 75 percent of the state’s registered voters to cast ballots by Tuesday night.
  
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell urged voters to “hang in there” as state and country officials braced for a huge turnout in that hotly contested state. More than 160 people were lined up when the polls opened at First Presbyterian Church in Allentown. “I could stay an hour and a half at the front end or three hours at the back end,” joked Ronald Marshall, a black Democrat.

Hundreds converged on polling precincts in Missouri, another crucial battleground state. Norma Storms, a 78-year-old resident of Raytown, said her driveway was filled with cars left by voters who couldn’t get into nearby parking lots.      

“I have never seen anything like this in all my born days,” she said. “I am just astounded.”

In some places the wait was longer than two hours.

“Well, I think I feel somehow strong and energized to stand here even without food and water,” said Alexandria, Va., resident Ahmed Bowling, facing a very long line. “What matters is to cast my vote.”

Some voting advocates worried that – tolerant voters or no – the nation’s myriad election systems could stagger later in the day, when people getting off work hit the polls.

“We have a system that wasn’t ready for huge turnout,” said Tova Wang of government watchdog group Common Cause. “People have to wait for hours. Some people can do that. Some people can’t. This is not the way to run a democracy.”
 
Ohio, which experienced extreme voting delays in the last hours of the 2004 election, had some jammed paper problems in Franklin County. “We’re taking care of things like that,” said elections spokesman Ben Piscitelli. “But there’s nothing major or systemic.”

Perhaps the most bizarre barrier to voting was a truck that hit a utility pole in St. Paul, Minn.’s Merriam Park neighborhood. The accident knocked power out for about 90 minutes to two polling locations. Joe Mansky, Ramsey County’s elections manager, said voting continued at those sites.
 
Election judges said the ballots were kept secure at one of the locations until the power was restored and the ballots could be run through an electronic machine, while a backup generator kicked in at the other site.

Late Monday, McCain’s campaign sued the Virginia electoral board, trying to force the state to count late-arriving military ballots from overseas. No hearing has been set.
 
McCain, the Republican candidate and a POW during the Vietnam War, asked a federal judge to order state election officials to count absentee ballots mailed from abroad that arrive as late as Nov. 14.

Lawsuits have become common fodder in election battles. The 2000 recount meltdown in Florida was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

What is uncommon about Tuesday’s contest is the sheer number of voters expected to descend on more than 7,000 election jurisdictions across the country. Voter registration numbers are up 7.3 percent from the last presidential election.

WAKE COUNTY, N.C. -  With just hours to go before the presidential election, the pace is frantic on all sides to draw out as many votes as possible.