Last week, election results from all states were finally certified. While most headlines focused on Hillary Clinton’s 2.8 million popular votes lead over Donald Trump, the results also debunked claims that had been circulating over the past few weeks.
Contrary to early reports, Trump ended up receiving two million more votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012. Meanwhile, Clinton fell short of Obama’s 2012 popular vote totals by about 70,000. Third party candidates surged from 2.2 million votes in 2012 to just over 7.8 million in 2016.
Final results also reveal that despite early claims of historically low turnout, the number of raw votes cast in the 2016 presidential election – 136,628,459 – is actually the highest total ever. (The previous highest was the 2008 election in which 131.1 million votes were cast.)
Even while adjusting for the voting eligible population, Professor Michael McDonald of the University of Florida estimates this election had a voter turnout rate of 58.9%. While this is lower than the 61.6% turnout in 2008 (which had the highest turnout since 1968), it’s still significantly higher than the 56% estimated by pundits immediately after the election.
PRISMOJI 