Election question

I'm really in no mood to write about the result. Or the apparent result, since there's still counting going on.

But I am wondering about something. In 2000, around 105 million Americans voted in the presidential election. This year, there's been tons of reports that voter turnout has been much much higher. Yet it looks as though only 111 million people voted this time around. To be sure, that's an increase, but it doesn't seem to reflect the long lines at polls that were widely reported.

I'm genuinely curious about this; all I know about the election has come through phone calls with my family, the BBC, and the internet, so I'm wondering whether all the reports of massive voter turnout were a bit exaggerated. If not, what's with the numbers?