Net Results

So how much more jazzed were South Carolina voters about participating in Saturday's Democratic presidential primary than last week's Republican primary -- and the Democratic contest in 2004?

Lots more jazzed....

* With just a handful of precincts yet to report in the Associated Press vote tally, almost 532,000 votes had been recorded in the Democratic primary. That greatly exceeded the unofficial vote total of 444,090 in last Saturday's Republican presidential primary, based on results posted on the South Carolina Republican Party.

* The Democratic turnout constituted an increase of roughly 80 percent -- ! -- over the total turnout of 293,843 for the 2004 South Carolina Democratic primary, in which then-North Carolina Sen. (and South Carolina native) John Edwards defeated eventual nominee John Kerry, the senator from Massachusetts, with black political activist Al Sharpton a distant third.

* The 2008 Republican primary turnout was more than 20 percent less than the turnout for the party's most recent previous competitive presidential primary, in 2000.

* Democratic primary winner Barack Obama had nearly 295,000 votes in nearly complete, unofficial returns... a total that exceeded all the votes cast for all candidates combined in the 2004 primary.

* The total upsurge in turnout was reflected even in the numbers for Edwards, who finished a distant third on Saturday behind Obama and runner-up Hillary Clinton. Edwards' 18 percent vote share for this year's primary was considerably less than half of the 45 percent he took in winning the state's primary in 2004. Yet the roughly 93,500 votes Edwards received this year was down a more modest 30 percent from his 132,660 in 2004. He did so much worse percentage-wise because there were so many more votes cast this time.