Election officials don't expect big hike in voter registrations this time

Illinois had a record number of newly registered voters in fall 2008 thanks, in part, to the Obama campaign, which ran the largest presidential voter registration drive in history.

State and county election officials don't expect to see as much of a surge this election, despite the growing energy of the tea party movement and Republican efforts to highlight the Democrats' falling approval ratings.

With next Tuesday, Oct. 5, the last day voter registration applications can be postmarked or delivered to county clerks' offices, officials can't point to final numbers yet. It will likely take awhile. There is a three-week grace period after that, but places to register become much fewer and farther between.

Still, officials can point to fall trends.

DuPage County Elections Director Robert Saar called registration numbers in 2008 "Obamfied," noting "that's not materializing in DuPage in 2010."

In fall 2008, Saar said, new voter registration applications each month came in 3,000 to almost 10,000 above the DuPage election commission's standard "baseline." This fall, voter registration is up by just a few hundred applications each month.

Cook County Clerk David Orr said September 2008 saw 48,000 new suburban voters register. This September, 7,400 registered. In McHenry County, Clerk Kathy Schultz said her office "doesn't really run new registration figures. But I would say at this point it's pretty standard."

In the last four months, Lake County Clerk Willard Helander's office has seen 6,630 new voters register more, she said, than the 2009 local elections, but less than the 2008 election.

Because of a software change, Lake County no longer has a snapshot of the number of new voter registrations in 2008 to compare to this year, Helander said.

While the counties aren't seeing a huge uptick in the number of new voters this year, they're not seeing a sharp decrease in total registered voters either, Orr points out.

Part of the reason is that registration statistics started to level out with passage of the National Voter Registration Act in the 1990s enabling motor vehicle agencies to process voter registration and address changes. So registration numbers tend to remain steady, even as suburban residents move from town to town.

"We still have the peaks, we don't have the valleys as much," Orr said.

A new Illinois law in place since February may further revolutionize voting in the state, though it's too early to predict its effect on the November election. The law allows any registered voter to vote by absentee ballot.

"My guess is people don't understand they can do it yet. In future years it's going to be the fastest going way to vote," Orr said.