Posted on 03/25/2008 7:03:26 AM PDT by mdittmar
More than 4 million have registered as Democrats
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Democratic Party enrollment surged past the 4 million mark Monday, setting a state record on the last day Pennsylvanians had to register to vote in next month's presidential primary.
The figures, which showed modest declines in the ranks of Republicans and independents, reflected intense interest in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and recruitment efforts by both candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.
Since last year's election, which featured races for judicial and municipal offices, the number of Democrats increased by more than 161,000, or more than 4 percent, to at least 4,044,952. No political party in the state had previously reached the 4 million threshold.
Registration in the GOP declined by about 1 percent, to 3,215,478 statewide.
The figures, released by state elections officials, did not include the final hours of voter registration in the state's 67 counties or mailed-in applications, which will count as long as they are postmarked Monday.
The largest percentage gains were concentrated in the Philadelphia suburbs and the state's central region, mostly in counties where Republicans still outnumber Democrats.
Of the more than 8.2 million Pennsylvania voters, more than 120,000 are people who were not previously registered to vote.
With four weeks remaining until the April 22 primary, Clinton retains a strong lead over Obama in Pennsylvania. A Quinnipiac University poll earlier this month showed Clinton favored by 53 percent of likely Democratic voters, and Obama by 41 percent.
The business of registering Pennsylvanians to vote was brisker than ever in many counties on the last day to sign up.
"We had people at the counter long before we opened up" Monday morning, said Joseph Passarella, director of voter services in Montgomery County, which is among the suburban Philadelphia counties that have seen large increases in Democratic enrollment as the nomination battle continues.
Only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote in the primary, which also includes candidates for nominations for the statewide row offices, Congress and the state Legislature.
At the Luzerne County elections office in Wilkes-Barre, Director Leonard Piazza III said the pace Monday was "very brisk," including hundreds of fresh applications dropped off by the Clinton and Obama campaigns.
"This is more like what we see in November" for general elections, he said.
Operation Chaos a success!
I’m one of those re-registered democrats. Pennsylvania FReepers, don’t give clinton a cake walk through Pa., vote obama!
Of course, with 4 million registered voters, all of those are legitimate non-dead, non-pet, non-double precincted voters, right?
And of course the Democrat-led government will work hard to ensure no voter fraud, like, say, a 105% turnout will happen in some Philadelphia precincts, right?
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHT.
YOU GOT IT
Hahaha!! “Operation Chaos” in full force! Good job, Penn.!
I think the idea is to vote OBAMA to get Hillary back into a tailspin. She is surging now, so says the conventional wisdom, and the idea of Operation Chaos is to keep the Democrat nomination in a constant state of flux.
I’m fully confident that the black precincts in Philadelphia will record their usual 99% turnout. Those people sure are conscientious. Puts we “typical white people” to shame.
This is where McCain is a demonstrated impotent candidate.
Rush has with a few words about a simple concept and goal motivated CONSERVATIVES to vote FOR HILARY CLINTON.
Just think about that.
The most left wing despised first lady of recent memory and Rush has conservatives voting FOR her.
McCain could not weild that kind of power. McCain’s only asset is that he may be a pro-homomarriage, pro-amnesty for illegals, pro-taxes but he is not one with a “D” after his name.
Question to McCain: Do you understand a mere talk show host has more political motivating power than you the republican nominee?
Doesn’t PA have about a 120% voter turn out during elections?
I’m predicting disaster and the very republicans voting democrat right now will blame anti McCain voters for the democrat administration when they themselves actually are voting democrat.
Related Story: Cemetery districts show 120% voter registration!
BTW I just got back from a 5 day vacation in Philly. While I was there I was solicited 4 times to register to vote.
This is fantastic!....The rat bastard democrats gave us McCain and now we give them McChaos!
They have to go into the convention VERY close, but with Obama in the lead. Then Hillary steals it through the supers.
This is how it must play out.
And Called an entire Race Typical Scardy Cats...
“Obama told Cataldi that “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know (pause) there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.”
If she sees a Black Person she gets scared. Is that what it means to be a typical white person? Maybe I’m not white then or typical because Black folks don’t scare me one bit... Maybe its all that Self Righteous Wright speaking that has corrupted Obama’s mind so that he can stereotype whites just like his preacher did when he lied by saying Whites invented aids to kill the black man... etc...
White People afraid of Black People, cats and dogs living together .... it is the end of times alright.
And you don’t think that relates to hillary also? She just hides it better.
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