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Pitt turnout claim debunked

Published by Tim McNulty on .

At City Paper, Chris Potter pokes a hole in the claims from Dems that there was massive turnout at Pitt:

It's pretty clear that the Democrats overhyped earlier claims of massive turnout. Just to take one example, earlier today I passed along claims that there was a surge in voting among college students at the University of Pittsburgh. It is true that additional voting machines were ordered late in the day for the Pitt campus. But in the final analysis, turnout at Posvar HallĀ  -- which handles students in Litchfield Towers -- was slightly below totals in 2006.

Four years ago, when Bob Casey beat Rick Santorum, nearly 750 votes were cast in Ward 4, District 8. Yesterday, only 726 votes were cast. This election's numbers are unofficial, of course, but the point remains: Turnout among young voters, who Democrats hoped would follow up on their support for Obama, was flat.

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