Participation in 2004 presidential election highest since 1968: study

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (AFP) - More than 122 million Americans, or 60.7 percent of registered voters, cast ballots in the November 2 presidential election, which saw US President George W. Bush win a second four-year term, a new study showed.
The showing marked the highest turnout for a US presidential election since 1968.
According to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, Bush secured some 62 million votes, or 50.8 percent of the ballots -- an increase of 11.5 million over his showing in 2000.
His challenger, Democrat John Kerry, garnered more than 59 million votes (48.3 percent), or eight million more votes than Democrat Al Gore received in 2000.
Independent candidate Ralph Nader obtained just over 440,000 votes (0.4 percent), down sharply from the more than 2.8 million he received in 2000.
Still, while 6.4 percent more voters turned out for the 2004 election than the 2000 polls, according to CSAE, a whopping 78 million eligible voters opted not to participate.
The group said that Bush won with support from around 30.8 percent of eligible voters.

01/15/2005 17:18 GMT - AFP