From community organizations to rock stars, various groups are involved in major campaigns this year to get people registered to vote on November 2nd.
And recent reports from around the country seem to suggest that the wide ranging efforts are paying off.
In states where the presidential race is hotly contested like Pennsylvania and Ohio, election officials are saying they are inundated with hundreds of thousands of new registrations.
And even in smaller battleground states like New Hampshire, there's no shortage of groups on the hunt for new voters.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Rebecca Kaufman has the story.
Track 1 :00 do you want to split up or go together? personally, I'd like to go together...
Last weekend, Jim Weliky and Peter Carlson spent their afternoon knocking on doors.
Track 1 2:17: sound of knocking on door
In a quiet low income housing complex in Nashua, the two volunteers were looking for signatures on a petition supporting affordable health care.
If they were successful in getting a signature, Weliky and Carlson followed up with a second request.
Track 9 1:10 we're asking folks if they're not registered to vote to register..would you be interested in signing a pledge card to vote? woman: well I'm not registered to vote. jim: well you can register that day, or you can register at city hall. there's a few good reasons to vote this year..
Weliky hands the woman a small voter pledge card.
Track 9 2:33 all we need you to do is sign the pledge card, we'll be back to you tell you what you need to do. woman: you'll probably have to do that b/c im not real familiar with voting. jim: well it's easy its at the Crisp school. woman: oh really, I know where that is.
Jim Welicky and Peter Carlson were two of about 20 people who volunteered that afternoon with the New Hampshire Citizen's Alliance.
The Alliance is targeting groups that they believe are less likely to vote: people of low income, people of color, women and youth, and although their issues would probably appeal more to democrats their registration efforts are non-partisan.
Most others in the state are not. Most are independent groups working on behalf of democrats.
The Organization America Votes is helping coordinate the campaigns of labor, environmental, and women groups.
The group MoveOn.org came to New Hampshire as part of their nation wide effort to register 400,000 Kerry supporters in battlegrounds states.
With some 40 paid staffers, ACT or America Coming Together, is one of the organizations working to elect democrats.
Track 4 2:07 there are two major schools of thought about what makes a difference, one of them is getting the undecideds
That's Delacey Skinner, communications director for ACT New Hampshire.
2:15: and then the second is getting new voters register, I think what you are not seeing reflected in polls that are out right now is all the new people that are getting registered
Skinner would not give hard numbers about how many people ACT had targeted as potential new voters.
On the part of the republicans, there seems to be significantly less activity.
Republican State Committee chair Jayne Millerick says she's not aware of independent groups working to register republicans.
But Millerick says the state Republican Party has registration plans of their own.
2:10 the more intensive efforts that we are doing now that we started in the spring do include reaching out to areas of the state that have a lot of new growth, and a lot of turnover ensuring people that they know they can register, how to do that, where to vote or about same day registration if that is more convenient for them
Millerick also couldn't say how successful the effort has been.
As organizers readily point out, New Hampshire isn't the easiest of states to register voters.
In Ohio, for example, volunteers can present a registration form at the door, filling it out for potential voters, get their signatures and put it in the mail.
But in New Hampshire, the most organizers can do is get interested individuals to promise to register.
So its not yet clear what kind of impact groups like ACT are having.
Still whether it's the registration efforts or just a heightened interest in the upcoming elections, many city clerks are saying things are very busy. In some cases busier than past presidential years.
Paul Bergeron is the city clerk in Nashua.
:17 during the month of September we registered 1, 127 new voters, in comparison in September of 2000 we registered 277 so the turnout expectation is getting higher as we speak
Bergeron's not sure why they saw such spike in September and he's not sure if it will continue in October.
In Manchester, Leo Bernier who has been city clerk for 17 years, says he also thinks there's more activity as of late.
He says they're seeing about 35 new voters register every day.
4:53 overall this is the biggest one so far, in its early stage now, I mean you know you're interviewing like it was November 2nd the numbers are higher than any I can remember, presidential election
But in other communities, clerks are saying any new interest in registration is just business as usual during a presidential election year.
Barbara Lessard has been Salem town clerk for 20 years.
1:12 it's a huge amount of interest in voter registration every four years and we have that this time, but I don't see that it is that much more than four years ago but its hard to tell, we were very busy four years ago and we're very busy now.
In Portsmouth, the city clerk reports an average of 20 to 25 registrations every day since the September 14th primary.
Concord repeats the same numbers.
But Secretary of State Bill Gardner, says despite all the efforts his numbers show fewer new registrants this year compared to four years ago,
About 19,000 registered between January's presidential primary and the states September primary in 2000 - that compares to 16,000 during the same time this year.
Gardner says between the September 14th primary and the general election on November 2nd is when the numbers really spike.
He expects the same this year.
1:00 In 2000 we have 52,000 added to checklist between the September primary and November general election, this year my guess is that it would the same, it would be very similar.
The deadline to register at town hall to vote is October 23rd.
But that's not the end of registration.
Voters can register at the polls on election day and at least that way organizers can be almost certain the new registrants will also cast a ballot.
For NHPR news, I'm RK.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo