From The New York Times, 10/4/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/politics/campaign/04vote.html?pagewanted=2&hp
As Deadlines Hit, Rolls of Voters Show Big Surge
By KATE ZERNIKE and FORD FESSENDEN
A record surge of potential new voters has swamped boards of election
from Pennsylvania to Oregon, as the biggest of the crucial swing
states reach registration deadlines today.
Elections officials have had to add staff and equipment, push well
beyond budgets and work around the clock to process the registrations.
In Montgomery County, Pa., the elections staff has been working nights
and weekends since the week before Labor Day to process the crush of
registrations - some 32,000 since May and counting.
Today is the deadline for registering new voters in Pennsylvania, as
well as Ohio, Michigan, Florida and 12 other states, and election
workers will go on mandatory overtime to chip away at the thousands of
forms that have been arriving daily.
To help in the effort, the Montgomery office has also added 12
computers, 15 phone lines and 12 workers from other departments - as
well as one of the technicians whose usual job is fixing voting
machines at the warehouse.
Across the county line in Philadelphia, overtime and weekend duty
began in July to deal with what is now the highest number of new voter
registrations in 21 years.
The office says it is still six days behind the flow, and the last two
days have brought about 10,500 new registration forms.
At 204,000, the number of new registrations has already surpassed that
of the last big year, 1992, which had 193,000.
"The vote was so close four years ago, people are now thinking, hey,
maybe my vote does count," said Joseph R. Passarella, the director of
voter services in Montgomery County.
Al Gore won in Pennsylvania in 2000 by 204,840 votes.
Officials across the country report similar patterns.
"Everything we're seeing is that there has been a tremendous increase
in voter registration," said Kay Maxwell, president of the League of
Women Voters.
"In the past, we've been enthused about what appeared to be a large
number of new voters, but this does seem to be at an entirely
different level."
Registration numbers are impossible to tally nationwide, and how many
of the newly registered will vote is a matter of some debate.
But it is clear the pace is particularly high in urban areas of swing
states, where independent Democratic groups and community
organizations have been running a huge voter registration campaign for
just over a year.
The parties have been registering voters as well, with Republicans
especially active in critical states in an effort to counter the
independent groups.
In Cleveland, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has spent
$200,000 on temporary workers this year to deal with a wave of 230,000
new registrations, more than double the number in 2000.
The number of registrations in Tallahassee, Fla., is up 20 percent
since the presidential primary in March.
And St. Louis is reporting the largest growth ever in potential new
voters.
"We are moving toward having the largest number of registered voters
in the history of St. Louis County," said David Welch, one of the
directors of elections.
Las Vegas added 3,000 to 4,000 voters a week in 2000 but is doing
triple that this year, forcing the office to hire 30 additional
workers.
The elections director said he was getting 3,000 new cards a day last
week.
Eight states reached registration deadlines over the weekend, and
registration will end in 31 states by the end of the week.
New Jersey's deadline is today, New York's Friday.
The registration deadline in Connecticut is Oct. 19.
Six states allow registration on Election Day.
A coalition of nonpartisan groups called National Voice announced last
week a push for an additional 200,000 registrations in the last days.
Project Vote, the nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now, which claims more than a million
registrations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and other states,
planned to have its largest force of paid workers on the streets over
the weekend registering people to vote.
These nonpartisan community groups, as well as Democratic
organizations like America Coming Together, have driven most of the
increase, registration officials say.
In Florida and Ohio, Republicans have mounted moderately successful
campaigns that have increased registration in suburban communities.
But the huge gains have come in areas with minority and low-income
populations.
In some of those areas in Ohio, new registrations have quadrupled from
2000.
President Bush won in Ohio in 2000 by 165,019 votes.
It is harder to say what is driving the registration increase in
Montgomery County, which is still considered "a Republican town" even
though it went for Mr. Gore in 2000 and Bill Clinton before that.
One of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania, it has had a lot of
new building in recent years.
But it also has working-class communities and is about 10 percent
minority, and the community organizations say they have worked hard to
register people here.
Some people registering have lived here for years but have not voted.
"I've been too lazy," said Kurt Saukaitis, 43, who was registering at
the county office.
He and his new wife, Candy, both have 16-year-old sons.
"The thought of a draft is scary," Mr. Saukaitis said.
He works at an aerospace factory that was bought recently by a company
on the West Coast, creating economic anxiety among its workers.
"All that money spent on Iraq, then old people can't buy medicine," he
said.
"Figure that out."
Bob Lee, the administrator for voter registrations in Philadelphia,
said:
"I think voter registration would be high even if this weren't a
battleground state. Just because people have a very high interest in
this election."
The big unknown is whether the new registrations will result in higher
turnout.
Election officials say some of the big groups seem to be signing up
anyone on the streets to reach quotas, with half-filled-out forms
suggesting something less than true enthusiasm.
Nevertheless, registration officials are expecting frantic deadline
days; offices in Philadelphia and Miami-Dade County, Fla., will stay
open until midnight.
Matt Damschroder, the elections director in Columbus, Ohio, will post
workers on the street outside the building to take registrations.
"Almost to an April 15, I.R.S. post office type of operation," Mr.
Damschroder said.
"We're expecting that it's going to be folks coming in by the
truckload."
He has had 12 people working around the clock in 12-hour shifts, six
days a week, to keep up with the flow, but he is still two days
behind.
Jacksonville, Fla., has hired 14 people since August, putting everyone
on seven-day workweeks, 12 hours a day.
Oregon's deadline is not until Oct. 12, but the state elections
division has started sending registration cards to the counties daily
instead of weekly to keep up with the pace of applicants.
Marion County, which includes Salem, has tripled its staff, from 4 to
12.
In rural areas and in nonswing states, the picture is less extreme.
The three employees in the elections office in Putnam County, Ohio,
said they were handling new registrations with no problem.
In largely uncontested South Carolina, Greenville County officials
said the pace was about what it was in 2000, and in California, which
has traditionally backed the Democratic candidate in presidential
races, registrations in Los Angeles County were actually running below
the level of four years ago.
Yet in suburban Cook County, Illinois, outside Chicago, workers
processed 46,000 registrations in September, the biggest monthly total
since 1992.
Many elections offices said they had increased their overtime budgets
in anticipation of a healthy increase in registration this year.
But, as Michael Vu, the director in Cuyahoga County, said, "I don't
think 100,000 extra voters was in anyone's plan."
Registration campaigns are usually reserved for August and September
of election years.
This round, the wave started early, with independent groups organizing
in crucial states like Ohio last year.
During the spring and summer, partisan and nonpartisan groups sent out
hundreds of paid workers, and many swing states showed unusually early
swells in registration in March, April and May.
______________________________________________________________
Exciting, eh?
Harry
.
|
