Republicans and Democrats Step Up Efforts to Register Millions of Voters
By RHASHEEMA A. SWEETING - NY Times
ASHINGTON, March 4 — Republicans have stepped up their push to register three million voters this year with the help of an election-year prop — an 18-wheel truck full of laptops, plasma TV's and multimedia equipment — designed to help communicate the party's message.
Not to be outdone, the Democrats have also begun an effort to appeal to new voters. They say they are planning to register one million of them, and this week volunteers for a new political action committee, started calling unregistered Pennsylvania residents.
The truck, known as Reggie the Registration Rig, will travel around the Southeast from March 6 through March 13 with the goal of registering one million voters. On Friday, the truck made its first stop, at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va.
"There are millions of unregistered Republicans all across America," said Ed Gillespie, the Republican national chairman, in a statement. "The president's steady leadership in these changing times is exciting more Americans to participate, and when more Americans participate that is good news for Republicans from the State House to the White House."
Volunteers for the Democratic PAC, ReDefeatBush.com, are using a more personal and direct approach. On Tuesday night, 95 of them gathered in a cozy bar in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, using their own cellphones to reach out to nearly 1,000 unregistered voters in swing states, starting with Pennsylvania. They said they used a list of potential voters in Luzerne County — an area pinned down through the ZIP codes of those most likely to be Democrats, based on voters currently registered with the party.
The group said it hoped to call about 10,000 people on their list next week, before shifting to Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania and later to Ohio.
"We are a diverse group, and we are reaching out to others through personal petition," said Nikole Yinger, 20, a volunteer and student at George Washington University here.
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