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In March of 2006, our Map of the Month displayed voter turnout statistics from the 2004 general elections, however, now that the 2006 midterm elections have come and gone, we have been able to update that map to reflect the newer results.

As we all saw last fall, the most recent election cycle was hotly contested and resulted in the Republicans losing control of Congress. Polls suggested that Americans were dissatisfied with the way their government was handling important issues, so we were interested to see whether this would result in a particularly high voter turnout.

Relying on data from the Rhode Island Board of Elections, we found that 38.6% of registered voters in Providence cast a ballot. This is lower than the 42.7% that voted in the 2004 general election, but it is worth noting that midterm elections do not generally attract a large percentage of voters. A better comparison comes from looking at the 2002 midterm election where only 34.9% of people registered voted, so a moderate increase in turnout did indeed take place.