80% voter turnout?

A good friend of mine is a county employee who always runs a precinct on election day (we're in Las Vegas). He figures the people running the show won't pull anything if he is the people running the polls.

Anyway, last night he told me about a meeting for election supervisors he attended. In it, he was told that there are about 800,000+ registered voters (though if that's the whole state or just Clark County he didn't pay attention to). They expect 3-400,000 early voters, with another 3-400,000 voting on election day. There have already been record early voting turn-outs in a state that does about 60% of its voting early. The head muckity-muck then told him that they fully expected an 80% voter turn out.

80% is unbelievable, but would be simply amazing if true. A lot of people have been writing the last few years about the slow death of Western democracy. It's not just the United States that's apathetic: Japan, Great Britain, and Continental Europe have all seen record lows of voter turn out in recent years.

One man, Barack Obama, is changing that in the United States. The hope he has inspired and the change he represents have inspired millions of Americans who just didn't care anymore, or who thought America had stopped caring about them. Even the people voting against him have been inspired, though sadly their reaction to unfamiliar concepts like "change" isn't to feel hopeful and proud but to lash out and cower.

SO what do you think the voter turn out will be in your neck of the woods?

EDIT: Oopsy - so excited I forgot the linky: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/osos_news.aspx?i=V9%2Bhuw%2FBsg%2F7DKO6lYy6%2BQ%3D%3D

I clicked on your link to the Washington Sec.of State and I was blown away to see that 6 counties are expected to exceed 90% turnout. Over 90% baby!
One of those is MY county.....San Juan!
I'm always "proud as punch" to see San Juan County come in the bluest of the blue in
Washington State.


:woohoo:

So why don't they have 100% turn out?

:P

Thurston County is all vote by mail this time. Not sure how many other counties are doing it.

And yeah, the "can't pump your own gas" thing in Oregon always blows my mind when ever I drive down the coast.

"That Place Where All the Hippies Live," based purely off my experiences with burned out hippies who used to live in Washington and now live in Vegas (perhaps not the best sample populace)

The only part of Washington I've ever seen is the harbor and the airport. When we were going through the Seattle Airport -- which, but the way, is an exceptionally poor design for an airport in an industry infamous for poor designs -- my daughter asked, "Daddy, why are there so many coffee shops in the same airport, and why are they all full?"

The best answer I could give was, "Because, sweetie, they're in a cult. Don't look them in the eye."

The bigger the turnout here, the less chance of that fucking pig Rossi stealing the governor's race. McCain never had a prayer here in any case, because even the Repukes hate him.

I couldn't give you a number, obviously, but I'd be really surprised if we didn't have historically high turnouts across the state (we're in WI).

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/036007McDonaldMi.pdf

Great article.

*replaced apparently dead link

But that is, actually, a pretty interesting article.

Somewhere I have a book (which naturally I can't find) with a chapter on British and Japanese voting habits, which had links provided. "50 Facts That Should Change the World." Great bathroom/airplane/standing-in-line reading.