WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (AFP) - Voter registration drives are gaining exceptional momentum in the runup to the US presidential elections, pointing to an unusually high turnout on November 2.
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), organization of the state officials responsible for keeping voter registration lists, reports "record-breaking numbers" in all regions of the country.
In Florida, where a bitter recount in 2000 delayed the official results by 36 days before giving George W. Bush a razor-thin win over Al Gore, there has been a surge in registrations. As of August 2, they stood at 9.7 million; one million more than in 2000, according to the secretary of state`s office.
This year, Florida is one of the states in hottest contention, with Bush and Democrat John Kerry virtually neck and neck.
In New Mexico, which narrowly went Democratic in 2000, 10 percent of the electorate will be new voters this year, said NASS spokeswoman Meredith Imwalle.
In Missouri and Minnesota, two key battleground states, "organizations are requesting boxes of voting registration cards by the thousands," she said.
"There`s been a surge. We have seen record-breaking numbers; 2000 showed that every vote counts."
The registration surge was at least in part legislated by Congress, which in 2002 passed the Help America Vote Act, said Imwalle. The law, she explained, was "designed to clean up the process. It gave money to the states for voter education and voter outreach campaigns."
But there is also a broad mix of parapolitical groups getting out the vote, from the flirty "Voter Virgins" skipping across college campuses to followers of unabashedly anti-Bush film maker Michael Moore offering registrants rewards of "clean shorts and freeze-dried soup."
The race is so tight that the two camps can only hope the surge in registrations will go their way.
"I am confident we`re going to win," said Don Eggert, an aggressive Democratic campaign worker in Wisconsin, where Bush holds a 10-point margin over Kerry in the polls.
Donald Green, political science professor at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, said the Democrats have drummed up more registrations than the Republicans. But he wonders whether that will produce results on November 2.
"Democratic organizations have registered a larger number, but we don`t know if they`ll vote," he said.
"Often these people don`t fit the stereotype of the people who are used to voting," he said. "They often have a lower socio-economic status, which means they are less likely to vote.
"It will all come down to voter mobilization," he said, "a knock-and-drag campaign."
Imwalle insisted the new surge in voter registration could be decisive.
"Participation is going to increase by about five percent, to 65 percent" of the citizen population, she said, noting that in 2000, 86 percent of those who registered, voted.
"When people register, they`re investing in the process," she said.