Voter registrations surge to record

Energizing campaigns and intense voting drives have led to a record number of voter registrations both locally and statewide, election officials say.

As of Friday, there were a record 3,515,393 voters registered in Washington state, up about 1,300 from the last record set in 2004, which was later scaled back after the state removed invalid registrations from its database.

In Yakima County, there are 94,958 registered voters, surpassing the number of people registered in the last presidential election by more than 900 voters, and which appears to be a record as well. Of that number, more than 6,000 are new registrations, according to figures from the Secretary of State's Office.

But those aren't the final figures, as there are still plenty of registrations to be processed, said Secretary of State Sam Reed.

"I think we're going to have a very good number of registrations, and well over where we were before," he said Tuesday.

Reed said there are more than 280,000 new voters in Washington this year, and that doesn't include a last-minute surge leading up to the Oct. 4 preliminary registration deadline.

Voter drives in Yakima County have had some impact.

The Democratic party's Latino Vote Project is taking credit for about 600 new registrations, while the local Democratic Party as a whole is claiming another 1,500 new registrations in the county, said Leslie Wahl, chairwoman of the 14th District Democratic committee.

She attributed some of the increased registration to the Democrats' presidential caucuses in February, which attracted about 1,800 people countywide.

"I think that stimulated voter registration as well," she said.

The Obama campaign also has made its presence felt in the Valley in recent months, knocking on roughly 2,500 doors and registering 1,500 voters, said Obama communications director Josh Field in Seattle.

"From day one, we wanted to reach out to every corner. Sounds like with these numbers, we're actually doing it," he said.

A breakdown on the number of registrations from the Republican party in the Yakima Valley wasn't available Tuesday night, said John Tierney, Yakima County Republican state committeeman.

But he says getting people to register is only half the battle.

Tierney said Republicans will be calling registered voters during the next few weeks to make sure they fill out and mail in their ballots. The GOP in Eastern Washington hopes to give gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi the boost he needs to be beat Gov. Chris Gregoire statewide. In the 2004 election, Rossi lost by 133 votes.

"You know, you do a lot in getting people registered, but the key is to get them to vote," Tierney said. "We'll be poll-cracking pretty hard."

Although the overall number of people registered to vote is much higher on the west side where there are higher populations, the increases appear uniform across the state.

Younger voters -- ages 18 to 30 -- appear to be making up a sizable bloc in new registrations this go around, accounting for about 28 percent statewide, Reed said.

Voter registrations tend to peak during presidential elections, but the possibility of having the first black president or women vice president is unquestionably having some draw, he said.

But having Rossi face Gregoire in the gubernatorial race a second time is also a lure, as well as this year's ballot measures on assisted suicide, transportation and home health care.

Voters who are not already registered in Washington can register in person at the county auditor's office until Oct. 20. Ballots have been sent out to military and overseas voters, and the rest of the ballots are set to go out Oct. 17.

Since 2006, more than 450,000 voter registrations have been canceled. Of those, nearly 95,000 were ineligible felons or people who had died, and almost 55,000 were canceled because they duplicated registrations.

The rest were people who moved out of state, asked to be removed or had not voted in the years covering two federal general elections.

* Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com

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