“I think it’s this sort of like stagnation among white non-Hispanics,” said Thom File, a voting analyst with the Census Bureau’s Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division. “To see (non-Hispanic, white voters) just sort of kind of hang out and vote in similar numbers as 2004 and then to see these … violent upticks in these other sub-populations (and) we’re just not used to seeing them vote that way. You get this sort of combined effect that I think really is the story of this election.”

Census data showed that although the percentage of voters participating remained at about 64 percent, new groups showed an increase in participation. Blacks, Asians and Hispanic voters all saw a 4 percent increase from 2004. Additionally, 18 to 24-year-olds were the only age group to see a significant increase in participation. The 18-24 age group, although still the least participatory at 49 percent, showed an overall increase of about 2 percent from 2004.

File said seeing an additional 5 million voters was not significant because of the number of voters, but rather because of who was voting. Of the 5 million new voters, 2 million were black, 2 million were Hispanic and about 600,000 were Asian.

“It’s a big increase,” File said. “But I guess I don’t think that number would be as interesting if we saw that evenly distributed across the electorate in regards to both race and age.”

Mark Kornbluh, an MSU professor and chairman for the Department of History with a background in voter participation, said he did not find the data regarding youth vote to be surprising.

“I think it’s easy to see why turnout may have gone up among the young,” Kornbluh said. “I think you had a candidate that excited youth more so than most elections.”

Jaimee Gillon, a 2009 MSU graduate, said election coverage and content was the reason for the statistical differences between the 2004 and 2008 election.

“I think on TV even more of the debates and the topics they were talking about interested the younger age group and the minority groups,” Gillon said. “So they heard that … their needs were being talked about or met in certain ways so they were more apt to go and vote for somebody who they thought was really meeting their needs.”

File said some people are shocked there was not as big of a difference between participation in the 2004 and 2008 elections.

“Don’t forget how much attention and interest there was in 2004 as well,” File said. “You know, I think we have a pretty short attention span sometimes when it comes to elections, but that was sort of a record year as well.”