A flurry of activity in state's final day of voter registrations

NORFOLK

Lines at Norfolk's voter registrar's office spilled out into the hallway on the 8th floor of City Hall Monday, the final day to register for the Nov. 4 election.

Even with stations set up inside the office and the hallway, lines formed at many times throughout the day.

Individuals registered to vote. Groups that have been canvassing the city for unregistered voters brought in stacks of applications. And voters were on hand to cast absentee ballots.

The scene was repeated in many registrars' offices across the state.

Virginia Beach registrar Pat Harrington said she had more workers in on Monday than ever before to handle the load of voter registrations.

Through September, Virginia had registered 306,215 new voters, a 7 percent year-to-date increase. The state had nearly 4.9 million registered voters with less than one week left to register.

Elisa Long, Norfolk's general registrar, said her office has seen an unprecedented volume of applications this election season. Norfolk has registered 8,000 new voters since June and estimates at least 2,000 other applications still need to be processed.

The numbers have been boosted by about six groups from outside the region in town to help register voters, Long said.

Gwen Mills, a project coordinator for United for Change, said her organization has been in Virginia since Sept. 5 knocking on doors looking for potential voters.

"Across the state, there's a very big number of unregistered voters and unregistered African American voters, in particular," she said. "Norfolk, by far, got our attention."

Mills said her group registered about 5,000 Virginia voters in the past month, more than 3,000 of them from Hampton Roads. The group also is canvassing in Danville and Petersburg and will follow up with the people it registered over the next month to educate them about the importance of casting a vote Nov. 4, she said.

The presidential campaigns of both Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, and Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, were aggressively registering in Virginia, which is considered a battleground state.

"We believe Virginia is going to make a difference in the election," said Ashley Etienne, Obama's Virginia press secretary. "We believe the more people register, the greater chance we will be successful in Virginia."

McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said that Hampton Roads was "one of our most active areas in the state" for registration drives.

Long said that Norfolk has grabbed the attention of national groups because of the gap between the adult population and the number of registered voters. She attributes much of it to military personnel who live here but are registered in their home states.

Workers at the Norfolk registrar's office had collected stacks of registration applications by the end of Monday. They have until the end of the week to verify and process them.

Because of the large number of new registrants, voters should expect lines at the polls on Election Day, Long said. In 2004, there were waits of 45 minutes at some Norfolk precincts, and turnout is predicted to be heavier this year, Long said.

Long encourages people with disabilities to consider voting by absentee ballot to avoid standing at their polling places for long periods of time.

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com