US: New voters are signing up in record numbers across the United States as state deadlines to register to vote expire this week, but it is unclear which party will benefit from the influx.
The rise in the number of new voters appears particularly steep in contested swing states, where Republicans and Democrats, as well as dozens of other groups, have been out in force on registration drives.
In the battleground state of Ohio, Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, registered more than 64,000 new voters, an increase of 29,000 over 2000, the county registrar said.
Final figures will not be available for a week or two for the tight November 2nd contest between Republican President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry.
Tonight, the pair will hold their second of three live televised debates, this time in St Louis, Missouri. Senator Kerry was widely regarded as having out-performed President Bush at their first encounter, which took place yesterday week in Coral Gables, Florida, and resulted in him eroding Mr Bush's opinion poll lead to level pegging.
The latest poll, by Reuters/Zogby, gave Mr Bush a two point lead as of yesterday.
Tonight's debate, - which begins at 3 a.m. Irish time and will last 90 minutes - will be chaired by Charles Gibson, co-anchor of ABC's Good Morning America programme. A full transcript will be available mid-morning tomorrow on The Irish Times 2004 election website, ireland.com/focus/uselection2004/
The debate will take the format of what the organisers, the Presidential Debates Commission, describe as "a town meeting in which citizens will pose questions to the candidates". Participants will be selected by the Gallup Organisation from undecided voters in St Louis.
The rush of voters to register has been particularly evident in Florida, the state Mr Bush won by just 537 votes in 2000. In an August 2004 primary in Florida, some 9.75 million people voted, a million more than the one four years ago. In Palm Beach County alone, 2,438 new voters registered in person last Monday, the final day of registration.
Florida election officials reported that by the end of August, before the last-minute rush, there were already almost a million more voters than in 2000. And in fast-growing Las Vegas, the Clark County registrar reported 100,000 new voters.
"We wouldn't expect a count for a couple of weeks but there's no question there's been a significant increase and a flood of applications has come in," said Mr Brian McDonald, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania secretary of state's office.
"The story emerging is of unprecedented registration and in a close election, any marginal advantage for one party or another could be very significant," said political scientist Prof Benjamin Highton of the University of California.