While record high voter turnout helped sweep Democrat Barack Obama to a White House win, the two-thirds of US voters who cast ballots in Tuesday's election is relatively modest, and even low, by other countries' measures.

Austria, Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg routinely see turnout of 90 percent, for example. And in Norway for example, analysts voiced alarm when voter turnout fell to 75.5 percent in the national election in 2001.

Not so in the United States where turnout in or higher 50 and 60-percents is not unusual.

During Tuesday's balloting, two-thirds of voters turned out nationwide, a record not topped since 1908, according to the independent election monitoring website RealClearPolitics.

Officials had also indicated turnout of more than 70 percent in several other key states on Tuesday, including Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio.

Meanwhile, more than 30 countries have high voter turnout largely due to compulsory voting.

From Argentina to Australia, Brazil, Cyprus, DR Congo, Ecuador and Fiji, to Liechtenstein, Singapore, Turkey and Peru among others, turnout is not a question; it's a political duty.

But in some countries voters take their non-compulsory right to vote seriously enough to keep turnout levels about three-quarters of eligible voters.

Sixty-three percent of US voters turned out in the 1960 election that brought John F. Kennedy to power. Turnout in 2004, when President George W. Bush was re-elected, was 55.3 percent

AFP