The blog Blue Indiana points to some good news in this article from The Times (of Munster, IN):
The primary elections may have been two weeks ago, but Porter County residents are still registering to vote en masse.
Instead of being able to take a breather after a hectic election, the Porter County voter registration office is scrambling to get work done -- starting with a stack of more than 1,000 voter registration applications waiting to be processed.
Kathy Kozuszek, the Democratic leader of the office, said the pile of forms is only from the last month and a half.
"I think we need another tray," Kozuszek joked, looking behind her at the stack. "I imagine this is how it's going to be all the way up to October for the general election."
If the pace keeps up, the county could be registering more than 3,000 new voters in the county for the Nov. 4 general election. Currently, there are 107,275 registered voters in the county.
One of the striking things about the baseline prediction laid out in Poblano's minority turnout model was how tight the general election race for Indiana looked. At the time we published our article on the model, Poblano had Obama losing the state to McCain by 60,000 votes (assuming 2004 levels of turnout). But if you increased youth, African-American, and Latino turnout by 25 percent, the state tipped into Obama's column. If registration continues to skyrocket in Northwestern Indiana, the McCain campaign may end up having to pour some additional resources into defending the state.
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