2nd-highest turnout ever for Ariz. general election

Nearly eight out of 10 registered voters in Arizona cast ballots in the general election, the second-highest turnout in the state's history, Secretary of State Jan Brewer said Monday.

Gov. Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Terry Goddard and Ruth V. McGregor, chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, joined Brewer to approve the official canvass of results from the Nov. 4 election.

The state had an all-time high of nearly 3 million registered voters for the election, which had home-state Sen. John McCain losing the presidential race to Barack Obama. Of those registered voters, 77.7 percent - about 2.3 million - cast ballots.

Brewer called it the most successful election Arizona has seen in years, in part because the state added about 300,000 registered voters and because of a program by her office to attract volunteers to staff polling places.

"Today's canvass signifies the end to a very successful election year in the great state of Arizona," Brewer said.

Brewer's office had predicted a turnout topping 80 percent, which would have challenged the record 80.1 percent in 1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter. The actual turnout was slightly higher than the 77.1 percent turnout in the 2004 presidential election.

The official canvass is held on the fourth Monday after the general election.

This year's canvass fell on the same day that Obama announced Napolitano, a Democrat, as his choice to become secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano gave a high five to Brewer, a Republican in line to become governor if Napolitano is confirmed, when the governor-to-be pledged to work with the Legislature to provide fast action on the state budget.

"On that we can agree," Napolitano laughed.

Yavapai County had the state's highest turnout percentage, at 84.9 percent. Apache County had the lowest, at 60.1 percent.

Maricopa County, which is home to about 1.7 million of the state's registered voters, had a turnout of 79.8 percent. Pima County, which has the state's second-highest number of registered voters at nearly 500,000, had a turnout of 80 percent.