168,785 missing voters in Georgia Senate race

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/bookman/entries/2008/11/10/168785_missing_voters_in_senat.html

168,785 missing voters in Senate race

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Here’s a strange number:

More than 168,000 Georgia voters went to the polls on Nov. 4 and cast ballots for president, then walked out without bothering to cast a vote in the highly advertised U.S. Senate race between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin.

That seems like a lot — an undervote of 4.3 percent. To put it in context, in a Senate race in 2004 pitting Zell Miller against Denise Majette, the undervote here in Georgia was only 2.3 percent.

So maybe this was an ‘08 phenomenon, something unique to the heightened emotions of the Obama-McCain race?

That doesn’t appear to be the explanation either. Minnesota, with a hotly contested Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken, reported only 14,000 undervotes, a rate of 0.5 percent. The same pattern holds with most other states with tough Senate races.

In North Carolina, the Senate undervote was 1.1 percent of the presidential total. In Oregon it was 3.3 percent, and 2.3 percent in New Hampshire. The only state where the total approached Georgia’s was Louisiana, at 4.0 percent.