Columbus, Ohio -- A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows.
The analysis by the New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio -- primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods -- new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: In the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas.
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The precise impact of the swell in registration is difficult to predict, as there is no reliable gauge of how many of these new voters will actually vote. Some experts, though, say that the spike has not been accurately captured by political polls and could confound prognostications in closely contested states.
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In Florida, where the Times was able to analyze data from 60 of the state's 67 counties, new registrations this year also are running far ahead of the 2000 pace, with Republican areas trailing Democratic ones. In the 150 ZIP codes that voted most heavily for Bush, 96,000 new voters have registered this year, up from 86,000 in 2000, an increase of about 12 percent.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/26/MNGGP8VC7N1.DTL
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