Posted November 9, 2006 by Legal Center Staff

The November 2006 Elections: What Do The Data Show?

Some interesting data are being collected and disseminated regarding Tuesday’s election results.  For example, George Mason University Professor Michael McDonald has published post-election turnout rate projections for the 2006 election available here.  

Nationally, according to Professor McDonald, 36.7% of the voting age population (18 and older) turned out to vote.  McDonald notes, however, that the voting age population figure “includes persons ineligible to vote, mainly non-citizens and ineligible felons, and excludes overseas eligible voters.  When turnout rates are calculated for those eligible to vote, a new picture of turnout emerges[.]”  When one looks at the turnout taking the ineligibles and overseas voters into account, then the voter turnout is actually 39.7% of those eligible to vote.  A spreadsheet available at the link also permits a comparison to earlier elections (back to 1980). 

Note, for example, that in the six states where Democrats picked up U.S. Senate seats (Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio, Montana and Virginia), the voter turnout rates (using the voter eligible data and not the voting age data) exceeded the national average by a considerable margin:  54.8% (Rhode Island), 42.7% (Pennsylvania), (49.3%) Missouri, 44.8% (Ohio), 51.5% (Montana), and 44.9% (Virginia).

In addition, some interesting exit poll data from CNN is also available online here.  The Initiative and Referendum Institute has also posted this handy report of the results of ballot measure elections in the 2006 election.

These exit poll data contain highly detailed information on the vote in each state, and contains data broken down for many interesting categories, such as the vote by age, gender, race, income, evangelicals, churchgoers, etc.

The Legal Center will continue to provide additional links to Election Day 2006 data and analyses as they become available.