Asserting 50-60 Percent Iraq Turnout Count 'Comparing Apples to Oranges'

[struggle4progress]

Media, Pundits Asserting 50-60 Percent Iraq Turnout Count 'Comparing Apples to Oranges'; Actually 25-30 Percent Says National Democratic Strategist Bob Weiner

1/31/2005 9:01:00 AM

<snip> "Media and pundits are universally totally off in asserting that Iraq had a 50-60 percent turnout and that the U.S. has the same or less," national Democratic strategist Robert Weiner pointed out today.

"I had to point this out when first I heard Chris Mathews, host of Hardball, who normally knows his stuff, say on "Hardball" Sunday night that "Iraq's 51-61 percent is what happens in the U.S.". Then I heard Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News say that the "voter turnout may have been higher than 50 percent", and I saw an A.P. story reporting Iraq's apparent "higher than 57 turnout...among the 14 million eligible Iraqi voters" compared to "In the United States, turnout hovered in the low 50 percent range and only this year squeaked to 60 percent."

"In fact", Weiner said, "all the media and pundits are comparing apples to oranges. We always have 80-90 percent turnout of registered voters in our national elections," Weiner stated. Among recent elections, of U.S. registered voters, "86 percent cast ballots in 2000...compared with the all-time low of 82 percent in 1996," according to the Bureau of the Census (press release Feb. 27, 2002: "Registered voter turnout Improved in 2000 Presidential Election, Census Bureau Reports" - available on the web at http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2002/cb02-31.html).

"The fact of the matter is that in the U.S., if people register, almost all vote. In Iraq, half did." <snip>

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=42318

[AllegroRondo]

1. Thanks for posting this

I've been looking for this data all day!

Repubs get all warm and fuzzy over 50-60% voter turnout, when in fact its only 50-60% of REGISTERED voters. And we have no idea how many ELIGIBLE voters there are because a census has never been done.

[asjr]

2. All this election did was make some Iraqis feel better.

Those high numbers are a result of propaganda and the whoring media.