Voter Registration on the Rise

In a Washington Times article excerpted below, many places across the country are seeing a tremendous rise in the number of people registering to vote.

Having recently been in West Virginia, I know that the registration efforts there are strongly favoring Republicans. The RNC has a strong registration effort taking places through the Christian community.

There is always a caveat in my mind regarding increased registration: will it lead to actual votes. Democrat registration efforts (largely in the union, black and Hispanic communities) have largely not turned out the vote with the exception of the defeat of Bob Dornan a few years back. Republican registration efforts typically have not seen large gains in the short term. But Republican efforts have been very successful in the long term with the rise of voting in the Christian Conservative movement from the 1980's until now.

My personal feeling is that the rise in registration is largely favoring the President. But with Philadelphia and Cleveland seeing increases, there is a chance that Bush will have a tough time of it in two states critical to his electoral success.

Bush still wins the election, though.

Voter-registration effort booms as deadline looms - The Washington Times: Metropolitan - September 29, 2004: " The AP reported that Cleveland has seen nearly twice as many new voters registering compared with 2000; Philadelphia is having its biggest boom in new voters in 20 years; and counties are bringing in temporary workers and employees from other agencies to help process the new registration forms. Philadelphia borrowed employees from other city agencies and started working overtime two months earlier than the usual post-Labor Day push.
The AP also reported that clerks have hired extra workers in Colorado, Ohio and West Virginia. "