# How many people voted in 2010 in the US midterms

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-voted-in-2010-in-the-us-midterms/559477>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 4, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-voted-in-2010-in-the-us-midterms/559477 "2010-11-04T16:37:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-voted-in-2010-in-the-us-midterms/559477/1 "2010-11-04T16:37:30Z")

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I’ve read 96 million voted in 2006 and about 130 million in 2008. Presidential elections have higher turnout than midterms, but I can’t find info on google about how many voted in 2010 in the midterms. Has that info been collected and released yet?

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**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-voted-in-2010-in-the-us-midterms/559477/2 "2010-11-04T16:44:55Z")

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I don’t think the results are out yet, but I read somewhere that over 12 million people alone clicked Facebook’s I Voted link. From what it looked like to me (purely anecdotal), turn out was about average or a bit less, but it’s hard to tell since I think that early voting made a pretty big impact on the lines at my usual voting establishment.

-XT

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**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-voted-in-2010-in-the-us-midterms/559477/3 "2010-11-04T16:48:44Z")

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[According to the New York Post](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/midterm_turnout_rise_NGAM65UkhJdVvbjpqWRbDM?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=), turnout was around 90 million. [MSNBC had a similar estimate ahead of time](http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/01/5390479-midterm-turnout-could-shatter-records-), and says there were 86 million votes cast in the 2006 elections. You’d expect turnout to go up because the voting age population is going up, and it sounds like a somewhat larger-than-average proportion of eligible voters participated.

> [@](#):
>
> McDonald, who bases his projections on early voting data as well as trends in individual states, calculates that turnout will be about 41.3 percent of the eligible voting population.
> 
> That’s comparable to the population that turned out in 1994 (41.1 percent of the eligible population) and the highest share since at least 1982.
> 
> Those numbers still pale in comparson to turnout in a typical presidential election. Average turnout in presidential years is 55 percent, compared to about 40 percent for off-year contests.

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**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-voted-in-2010-in-the-us-midterms/559477/4 "2010-11-04T20:50:24Z")

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According to this story, Missouri voter turnout was [46.8%](http://kmox.cbslocal.com/2010/11/03/46-8-voter-turnout-in-missouri/) compared to 60.7% in 2008. No figures given for 2006.