2012 election results nytimes3/18/2024 ![]() ![]() Supreme Court struck down this pre-clearance provision of the Act in an Alabama case, Shelby County v. Finally, particularly in those states and counties (mostly in the South), the 1965 Voting Rights Act has required any change in the electoral process to be pre-cleared by Washington for its impact on minority voting rights. Also, the registration process has become easier, with more venues open to enroll voters. ![]() Many states have installed early voting procedures that allow registrants to cast ballots as much as three weeks prior to the election day (the first Tuesday in November). In recent years, however, changes in the voting process have enabled less affluent voters to vote on a more flexible schedule. Poorer people, tied to jobs, family care issues, and the daily grind of survival may have priorities that take precedence over casting a ballot on a given day. Turnout is also a function of opportunity: the ease of accessing polling places, the time to wait in lines, and the weather. Turnout is often a function of class: poor people vote less often than more affluent voters. ![]() However, turnout among black voters has historically been less than the turnout among whites. Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the registration of black voters has grown to be equal to that of white registrants: slightly better than two-thirds of the eligible electorate. The second surprise was the remarkable turnout of the African American electorate. This was a remarkable feat considering the pundits’ predictions of a very close election. In fact, the president lost only two states he won in 2008: Indiana and North Carolina. The election-day surprise was that Barack Obama lost only one swing state-North Carolina-and that by a margin of less than one percent. The candidates made occasional forays into states such as California and New York (both solidly Democratic) or Texas (solidly Republican) only for fund-raising not for on-the-ground campaigning. Most of the parties’ face-to-face campaigning and political advertising concentrated in the swing states. The other states were so solidly behind one or the other candidate that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Depending on the media outlet, those states numbered anywhere from six to nine. Obama had a comfortable margin in the popular vote-51.1 percent to 47.2 percent-reflecting a nearly three-million vote majority for the Democrat.Īs with previous presidential elections, the contest hung on the swing states-those states where the pre-election polls indicated a race too close to call. The popular vote was not especially close either. Obama easily exceeded the 270 votes needed to win the election. Barack Obama won a commanding majority in the Electoral College: 332 to 206 electoral votes. The electoral vote, the popular vote, and the results in the so-called “swing states” all broke in favor of the president. First, given the constant media emphasis on the closeness of the election, it was surprising that the result was not particularly tight. Two results from the 2012 presidential election surprised me. Given the changes in American demography, this party line-up will become more common in the future. On the Democratic side, Presidential Barack Obama is a black Protestant, and Vice President Joe Biden is a Roman Catholic. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president, is a Mormon his vice-presidential running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, is a Roman Catholic. In addition, for the first time in American history, neither the presidential nor vice presidential candidate of the major political parties was a white Protestant. However, the 2012 contest had its own unique features, not least of which was the re-election of a black president. It would be difficult to top the historic import of the 2008 presidential election when voters elected America’s first black president. ![]()
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