Voting results in NH

[mark at buttery.org (Mark J. Dulcey)]

Don Levey wrote:
> 
> I made those numbers to be about 217,000.
> 
> 
> 
>>We can simply deduce that 22% of persons over the age of 18 voted
>>yesterday in NH.
> 
> 
> More accurately, we can deduce that 23.4% of persons over 18 voted in the
> Democratic primary.  I don't know how it works in NH, but in many places
> only
> registered party members can vote in that party's primary.  Anyone know the
> party breakdown in NH?

Some numbers, courtesy of smh.com.au...

> WHO: There are about one million New Hampshire residents. In the last general elections in 2002, 66 per cent of 690,159 registered voters cast their ballots. There were more undeclared or independent voters (260,021) than Republicans (253,504) or Democrats (176,634).
> 
> Undeclared voters can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary.

So, around 45% of the voters eligible to vote in the Democratic primary 
did. That is actually a remarkable showing for a primary; I've seen 
final elections with turnouts no higher than that, though not in New 
Hampshire. (The number is 45.8% by the math, but those were 2002 
registration numbers, so the current number of registered voters is 
probably higher, especially since NH allows election-day registration.)

Next question: how many people are eligible to register, but haven't? 
(The state of New Hampshire actually gives its population as 1,275,000 
as of 2002, but doesn't supply age data. The 2000 census lists about 
309,000 residents under 18, so 1 million is probably about right in 
round numbers for the current voting-age population of the state.) Some 
of them aren't citizens, of course; about 28,000 in the 2000 census. 
Convicted felons in New Hampshire are not permitted to vote while 
incarcerated, but are eligible after release. (Many states permanently 
revoke the voting rights of felons, or make it difficult to get them 
back; NH is not one of them.) The 2000 census lists a total incarcerated 
population of about 13,000, but does not break down how many of them are 
felons. Still, that leaves a significant number of people who just 
haven't bothered to register - somewhere around 250,000.

Now that the data is in, this is probably about as far as this off-topic 
discussion should go on this list...