A surge in voter registration may help Clinton

A last-minute surge in voter registration is swelling the ranks of Democratic voters and perhaps bolstering U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s odds of winning Tuesday’s presidential primary in Connecticut.
As many as 22 people an hour have been signing up to vote in the primary, most of them independents who are joining the ranks of the Democrats in order to vote in the primary, city election officials said.
Cathy Myers filled in the necessary form Wednesday to switch to the Democrats from her longtime unaffiliated status.
“I didn’t realize I was losing out” before, she said, by letting party regulars pick the candidates for the general election.
This time around, though, she wanted her support for Clinton to count.
“Us women are sleepers,” Myers said. “We’re coming out of the closet” to help put a woman in the White House, she added.
“It’s time for a woman to be president,” said Yvette Badger, who was also changing her registration Wednesday so she could vote for Clinton on Tuesday.
Registrars Ellie Klapatch and Bob Badal said that some of those coming in are also backing Democrat Barack Obama or one of the Republican hopefuls, particularly U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
As of mid-day Wednesday, there were nearly 300 more people on the voting rolls than there were on Election Day in November – and Democratic ranks in the city had climbed well over 13,000 voters for the first time in years.
Democrats claimed the allegiance of 41 percent of the 31,940 voters on the ranks Wednesday, compared to 17 percent for the GOP, a number that hasn’t changed much for many years.
In the early 1980s, more than half the registered voters in town were Democrats, but by the last presidential election in 2004, the party claimed the allegiance of only 39.5 percent of the city’s electorate. Democrats gained slightly before the 2006 congressional elections, but the positive trend has accelerated in recent months.
Nora Anderson, the secretary in the registrar’s office, said she’s been stunned at the pace of registration. She said about 60 percent of those coming in are women.
Badal, the Democratic registrar, said “a lot of people want to be part of the process.”
Badal said he has seen mostly young and middle age voters signing up to vote in the primary, with more women than men among them. He said, though, he can’t be sure whether Obama or Clinton will benefit most from the registration surge.
The only thing he’s sure about is that voting in the primary is likely to be brisk. Badal said he’s already ordered more ballots twice to make sure he doesn’t run out Tuesday.
Klapatch, the GOP registrar, said that Democrats and Republicans seem especially enthusiastic about the candidates this year.
Badal said he wouldn’t be surprised if primary turnout exceeds 50 percent on the Democratic side, particularly if forecasts for relatively mild temperatures prove accurate.
Klapatch said that concern about the large numbers who might come to the polls has convinced school officials and the police to put police officers or hired security at every polling place in the city’s schools during school hours.
The city is paying about $3,000 for the extra security, Klapatch said, which is a first.
Voters will fill in special paper ballots – salmon-colored for the Democrats and white for the Republicans – which will be counted by a machine.
The ballots contain the names of a number of candidates who are no longer in the race, but all of the significant remaining contenders are among the names on the ballots.
The polls will be open Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The in-person deadline for registering or affiliating with a political party in order to vote is noon on Monday, February 4. Mail-in registrations must be postmarked by Thursday to qualify.

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