WASHINGTON - A turnout rise among African Americans and college-educated youth propelled Barack Obama to a presidential victory and the country to its highest voter turnout since 1960, according to a report released today by voter guru Curt Gans, the head of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

African-American turnout - the percentage of eligible voters who actually cast ballots - likely exceeded turnout among white voters for the first time ever, according to Gans.

As a whole, turnout increased by 2.4% over 2004. The election saw 63% of eligible voters cast ballots, coming up just short of the 64.8% that voted in 1960.

In Missouri, 2,925,205 people voted, accounting for 67.59% of the of the state’s voting age population, the eleventh highest state total. Illinois, Obama’s home state, came in at 27, with 64.67% of the voting age population making the trip to the polls.

Turnout increased in 37 states and the District of Columbia, topped by the aforementioned District (13%), North Carolina (10.3), Georgia (7.6), South Carolina (7.4) and Virginia (7.1).

“Given where the enormous rise in Democratic turnout and where those turnout increases occurred-all, with the exception of Colorado, in states (and the District of Columbia) with a large percentage of African-Americans-it is virtually certain that African-Americans were a major factor in Democratic turnout increase and Democratic victories in Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia,” Gans said in a press release. “It is also virtually certain that when the Census Bureau comes out with its biennial survey on reported registration and voting, African-American turnout rates will have exceeded white turnout rates for the first time ever.”

As much as not-so-typical voters fueled Obama’s win, apathetic Republicans doomed Sen. John McCain, according to Gans. Had Republicans turned out at normal rates the election would have been closer and overall turnout may have come in at a record high.

Republican turnout decreased in 44 states, as well as the District of Columbia.

“It is likely that GOP voting decline started at the top of the ticket-with some of the culturally conservative Republicans not seeing McCain as one of their own while moderates were appalled by the selection of Gov. Palin, McCain’s hawkish view on foreign policy and his tendency, at least in the campaign, to shoot from the lip,” Gans wrote. “A portion of GOP registrants also likely perceived, as the campaign wound down, a Democratic landslide which made some discouraged and demobilized.”

And in an interesting but not entirely significant finding, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (remember her?), McCain’s running mate, received 18 write-in votes for the top job.