Highest Voter Turnout Since 1908 In The 2008 Historic Election Shows Unity For President Elect Barack Obama
“America voted in record numbers, standing in lines that snaked around blocks and in some places in pouring rain. Voters who queued up Tuesday and the millions who balloted early propelled 2008 to what one expert said was the highest turnout in a century.
It looks like 136.6 million Americans will have voted for president this election, based on 88 percent of the country’s precincts tallied and projections for absentee ballots, said Michael McDonald of George Mason University. Using his methods, that would give 2008 a 64.1 percent turnout rate.
“That would be the highest turnout rate that we’ve seen since 1908,” which was 65.7 percent, McDonald said early Wednesday. It also would beat the old post World War II high of 63.8 percent in the famed 1960 John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon squeaker. The 1908 race elected William Howard Taft over William Jennings Bryan.” Seth Borenstein AP
Merlian News would like to congratulate President-Elect Barack Obama on winning the United States Presidency!
What Obama did exceeded barriers of race, religion, class, age and gender. Obama reached this country’s humanity, and from that place of hope and inspiration, created the biggest and most profound change any of his supporters could have dreamed of.
This election motivated people of all ages and backgrounds to leave apathy behind and get out to the polls. Every conceivable media outlet encouraged people to vote and tracked progress of the election. More young people voted in this election than any election we have be alive to witness. Social networking platforms like Facebook, a network originally designed to help college students keep in contact with each other, tracked voters through their website by having the option to click when you’ve voted, and tallied the votes cast by their users. By 6 pm, November 4th, 2008, over 3 million Facebook users had voted. You could sit and watch the numbers go up by the hundreds of thousands as the homepage refreshed itself every couple of seconds. It was absolutely incredible!
This country, which is often divided by many passionate opinions and the exercise of it’s freedoms, finally felt united as news spread of Obama’s victory. Even this morning there is a buzz in the air, a sense of positivity and excitement, wherever you go.
Let us all now put our differences aside, and stand together in unity, sending love and light to our new leader in the difficult times we face. Let us stand together in hope for a new beginning.
Merlian News & Team
Merryn Jose – Editor & Publisher
Dena Ventrudo- Assistant Editor
Donna Baker Church- Book Reviewer
Eugene Kelly- Book Reviewer
Cheryl Shainmark- Book Reviewer
Carl Casella – Sound Editor