The hard-fought Democratic nomination contest between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is making every primary critical. As a result, the late-voting states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon have seen a boost in voter registration, state officials say.

"We're definitely seeing a big increase," says Scott Moore, spokesman for the secretary of State's office in Oregon, where more than 28,000 people registered to vote in January and February.

Moore says he expects 25,000 more voters to sign up this month, before the April 29 deadline, "because there are a lot of campaigns that are just now kicking off registration drives." If so, Oregon would top 2 million registered voters.

In North Carolina, which votes May 6, 165,449 new voters have registered since Jan. 1, nearly a 3% jump in total registration. Three-quarters of the new voters are Democratic or independent and therefore eligible to vote in the Clinton-Obama contest.

"We have seen it jump just in the last couple of weeks," says Les Fugate of the Kentucky elections division, which added about 21,000 new voters in January and February.

Already-registered voters are also switching their party affiliation to participate in upcoming Democratic primaries.

In North Carolina, 31,250 people switched their party registration since the beginning of the year and 80% became Democrat or independent. The state allows independents to vote in party primaries. In Oregon, 12,548 people switched their affiliation last month, and 77% of them became Democrats.

In Pennsylvania, nearly 106,000 voters switched to Democratic registration between March 4, when Clinton won the Ohio and Texas primaries, and the state's March 24 registration deadline. In that time, nearly 66,000 new Democrats were registered.

The total boost of nearly 172,000 Democratic voters in just 20 days in Pennsylvania far exceeds the nearly 19,000 increase in the party's registration from November 1999 to April 2000 — the last presidential primary without an incumbent seeking re-election.

Alycee Nelson Ruley, the tax collector in Morton, Pa., switched parties to vote for Obama in the primary. "I didn't want to wait till November," she says. Ruley, a Marine veteran, likes Obama because "he speaks to the issue that's most important to me," the war in Iraq.

Election officials in Montana and South Dakota say they haven't seen large increases in voter registration.

This year's presidential battle has brought a record numbers of voters to the polls. So far, primaries in 23 states and the District of Columbia have broken turnout records for at least one party, according to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University. Nominating caucuses in Iowa, Hawaii, Maine and Minnesota also drew record numbers.

The center's director, Curtis Gans, says primary turnout this year is on pace to eclipse the record set in 1972, when nearly 26% of eligible citizens cast ballots.

Enlarge By Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP Young Obama student volunteers Mike Stratta, left, and Christo Logan, right, assist University of Pennsylvania worker Dave Munson, 45, fill up a voter registration form on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia March 20.

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