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Thursday, October 9, 2008, C-T

There’s been a noticeable increase of walk-in traffic at the Livingston County Clerk’s office this year and election authority Kelly Christopher says the county now boasts 9,594 registered voters — the most the county has had in about 20 years. “I think when the county’s population was larger, there were over 10,000, but this is the highest we’ve had since that time,” Christopher said.

Wednesday marked the end of the voter registration period, however Christopher said that a few more registrations could come in the mail Thursday. Those registrations, she said, would be valid only if they were postmarked by yesterday. Just since the primary election on Aug. 5, there’s been 334 new voter registrations, which is a 3.4 percent increase, according to Christopher. She added that since Jan. 1, there’s been an increase of 8.7 percent in new voter registrations for the county.

The approaching presidential election and the attention it’s generating is likely the cause of the registration hike and the increase in walk-in traffic, Christopher speculated. Eligible residents could register to vote at several sites, Christopher said. The breakdown of registrations at those sites are:

• U.S. Armed Forces — 2
• North Missouri Mental Health — 1
• Mail-in Post cards — 71
• Department of Motor Vehicles — 96
• Federal Post Card Registration — 3
• Social Services — 43
• Livingston County Clerk’s office — 118

As well as handling voter registrations, the clerk’s office has been busy with 2,259 name and/or address changes since the primary. Christopher said that since January, there’s been a total of 4,333 name and/or address changes in voter registrations. Christopher said voters seem to be more aware in ensuring that their voter registrations are up-to-date — a necessity in order to cast a legal ballot. “People are just more educated this year on getting everything in order leading up to the November general election,” she said.

Statewide, election officials have noticed a jump in voter registration. Voter registration ahead of November’s election is up about 1.5 percent over 2006 in Missouri, the secretary of state’s office said Wednesday. The rolls are expected to keep growing as new registrations are tallied, according to the Associated Press. Local election authorities have seven business days to submit voter registrations to the secretary of state’s office. As of Wednesday, Missouri had 4,066,188 registered voters.