Voter Registration Up Across Middle Tennessee

Yesterday was the deadline to sign up to vote in the state’s August 7 primary, and election officials say registration is up across Middle Tennessee.

Primary ballots include state legislative and congressional races, as well as school board, local offices, and referendums.

Rutherford County election administrator Hooper Penuel says his office has seen a “flood of activity” in the last week, and he expects voter rolls to keep climbing through the fall.

“Right now we have 132,000 registered voters here in the county. We expect to put on another twenty to twenty-five thousand between now and the cut-off date for the November election.”

Davidson County Election Administrator Ray Barrett says this year’s presidential race is attracting a lot of voters. He’s crunched some numbers comparing recent sign-ups with the last presidential election year.

“I did a little program on seeing what we did in ’04 for the same period of time, and we did 11,029. This year for the same period we’ve done 17,434.”

Barrett encourages anyone planning to vote this fall to register now, though their names won’t be officially added to the rolls until the day after the August 7 primary.

Once the rolls re-open, the deadline to register to vote in November’s general election is October 6.