Voter Fraud May Be Elevating Turnout Stats

Wall Street Journal Online (paid access) reports:

"Michael McDonald, a politics professor at Virginia's George Mason University, predicted nearly 65% of the electorate would have voted by the time all polls closed -- matching or eclipsing the turnout in the presidential election of 1960 featuring candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Not since 1908, when the U.S. was convulsing through a shift from the machine party politics of the 19th century to the free-for-all of modern campaigns, has so large a proportion of Americans participated in a presidential election."

The year 1908 is meaningful. In the nineteenth century voter turnout was high because the urban political machines routinely falsified votes. In the Progressive era around 1908 states began requiring voter registration, and voting rates fell below 50% from then on. Historians of the Progressive era often note this. This is the first year since 1908 that voting rates reached 65%. I wonder what portion of the exess 15% is due to enthusiasm about Barack Obama and John McCain, and what portion is due to fraud, notably by ACORN and other pro-Obama thugs.