“I’m going to hold my breath until I die and then you’ll all be sorry” department: from The Kansas City Star—

As of late Wednesday, just more than 121 million votes had been counted in the race for president. In 2004, there were 122.3 million voters.

This year’s number may grow as returns from California and Oregon are added. Still, experts’ predictions that this year’s turnout would far surpass that of 2004 may have been too optimistic.

The main culprit: While Obama’s total vote exceeded that of George Bush’s four years ago by more than a million ballots, McCain’s total votes ended up far short of John Kerry’s losing effort in 2004.

In other words, Republican turnout dipped substantially.

“I always said there was going to be a downturn in the Republican turnout,” said Curtis Gans, a nationally known voting expert.

“There was discouragement about an election it didn’t look like they could win … and right-wing Republicans didn’t see McCain as one of their own.”