U.S. Presidential Election 2008

Long lines and waiting hours outside polling stations across the United States early Tuesday, the official Election Day, and the number of people who have already cast their votes further indicate that voter turnout this year is expected to be fairly high.

"We opened the doors at 6 a.m (EST), but many people were already lining up outside," said Piere Lee at a fire station-turned-polling station in Arlington, Virginia, "It seems that Americans are fairly enthusiastic about voting this year."

Statistics show that voter registration numbers are up 7.3 percent from the last presidential election.

Democrats, in particular, saw their registration numbers increase by 12.2 percent, while Republicans saw their ranks grow by only 1.7 percent, according to a recent analysis by The Associated Press.

Extra ballots and additional touch-screen machines have reportedly been dispatched by voting officials across the country. Still, observers worry that those efforts are not enough.

Many experts had earlier predicted that voter turnout this year will be the highest in decades.

Some political observers predict early and absentee voters will make up about 30 percent of the total voters on Election Day -- which could approach a record 130 million to 140 million.

"We have a system that is traditionally set up for low turnout," Tova Wang of the government watchdog group Common Cause was cited by local media as saying.

Record numbers have already cast ballots in early voting. As of Monday, more than 24 million had cast their votes. Election experts predicted more than a third of the electorate would have voted before the polls opened on Election Day.