The Daily Background

Associated Press reports on how democracy fared on November 7th:

Almost 79 million people voted in Tuesday’s election, with Democrats drawing more support than Republicans for the first time in a midterm election since 1990.

The overall turnout rate, reflecting a percentage of voting age population, was 40.4 percent, compared with 39.7 percent in 2002, according to an Associated Press vote count and an analysis by American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

A preliminary analysis showed that turnout was down in some states and higher in others — notably up in Virginia, where it appeared more people voted than in any midterm in the state before, said Curtis Gans, director of the university research group.

The highest recent midterm turnout was 42.1 percent in 1982.

Awesome. That’s incredible, I’m extremely pleased. Could it have been better? Absolutely, but Tuesday was a great day for this country. For a while, democracy in this country seemed to be stagnating; less and less percentage of the eligible electorate were turning out to exercise their right and privilage to participate. But now we’re on the upswing again, with the highest turnout rate in more than 20 years. It took a terrible Congress to do it, but I think we’re headed towards brighter times, at least in with regard to the state of democracy in this country.

Filed under: oh six midterm Elections, Z-TDB Blog