WITH 17 days of intense campaigning still to go, the passions of a polarised electorate and the promised participation of a huge number of new voters are pointing to a record turnout on November 2.

The 2004 presidential race has already smashed records for money raised and spent, making it comfortably the first $1 billion exercise in democracy. But other measures are also supporting predictions that American voters will rise significantly above their usually disinterested election-day performance when almost half habitually stay at home. Election offices in swing states have for weeks been snowed under by unheard of numbers of voters trying to register. In Ohio, Cuyahoga county in Cleveland has registered 230,000 new voters, more than double the number in 2000. St Louis, the biggest city in bellwether Missouri, has reported the largest growth in new voters.

Fresh evidence of an unusually focused electorate came as viewing figures for Wednesday’s third and final presidential debate showed that despite a night of potentially epic baseball on TV, more people watched President Bush and John Kerry than did so for any presidential debate in the past two elections.

The series of debates reversed a trend since the onset of cable television in the early 1990s of waning interest in the televised showdowns which for many Americans are the first time they take the measure of the candidates.

Some 62.5 million watched Mr Bush and Mr Kerry face to face in Coral Gables, Florida, for the first debate, the largest campaign viewing figures in 12 years. Interest was then expected to tail off. But the 46.7 million who watched the second showdown and even the 43.6 million who watched Dick Cheney and John Edwards square off in the vice-presidential contest beat the largest viewing figures in the 1996 and 2000 campaigns.

Mr Bush and Mr Kerry were competing on Wednesday against the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox battling for the American League pennant. Some analysts suggested that the clear margin with which voters awarded Mr Kerry a victory on stage at Arizona State University may have been because Mr Bush’s core vote of white men were not watching.

The figures for voter registration tell the same story of heightened interest. Part of the reason lies in the momentous times. This is the first US election since the September 11 attacks. Part also lies in the 2000 results which revealed how evenly the country was split into “50/50 America”, but also that every vote really did count. Mr Bush’s victory in Florida was by 537 votes and Al Gore’s in New Mexico was by 366.

The 2002 Help America Vote Act gave money to state officials to try to boost poor turnouts. Both sides of the political divide have also invested millions of dollars in efforts to sign up new voters.

In Philadelphia, the largest city in swing state Pennsylvania, state officials began weekend and overtime rotas in July to try to cope with the highest number of new voter registrations in 21 years.

Boomtown Las Vegas in Nevada, whose five votes in the presidential electoral college are potentially crucial, added some 3,000 new voters a week in 2000. This year the rate has more than trebled.

Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said that the new registrations were more likely to help Mr Kerry. “My guess is that by 55/45 or even 60/40 these are Democratic registrations,” he said. “If Kerry wins, that’s what we will look to.”

However, the Right is hardly standing still. Christian groups such as Redeem the Vote and Focus on the Family have sprung up to boost registration.

Although they have to be formally non-partisan to comply with tax law, the evangelical vote is heavily Republican.

Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s chief strategist, has for the past four years aimed at maximising turnout among four million evangelical Christians who stayed at home in 2000.

Some of the largest gains have tended to come in areas with low-income families and ethnic minorities. In some such areas in Ohio, won by Mr Bush by 165,019 votes four years ago, the registration rate has quadrupled.

The trend has fuelled fears of electoral fraud. In Ohio four counties have registration numbers greater than the number of voting-age residents.

There is also a big difference between registering and actually turning out to vote. Accordingly, both sides have invested heavily in get-out-the-vote operations on November 2.

If the race remains deadlocked until then, it will likely be the success of such operations that decides the election.

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