As of Aug. 3, there were 683,117 active Democrats compared to 577,223. The largest group of voters, however, was registered as “no party” and totaled 697,512.

The more than 106,000 voter advantage held by Democrats is up from this time last year, when the party held a 91,000 voters advantage. However, it is down from the more than 111,000 voter advantage the party held in March.

The most lopsided congressional district for the Democrats was the Second, represented by Dave Loebsack, where Democrats have a 60,000-voter edge. For Republicans, only western Iowa’s Fifth District gives the GOP an edge, with more than 41,000 more registered voters. However, it is also the district with the fewest registered voters. There were 391,775 voters registered in the Fifth, more than 20,000 fewer than the next smallest, the First District.

The most lopsided counties appear to be Johnson in eastern Iowa and Sioux in western Iowa.

In Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa, Republicans make up only 16 percent of the more than 100,000 registered voters.

In Sioux County, located in the conservative northwesternern section of Iowa known to many as “Iowa’s Bible Belt,” Democrats make up only 9 percent of the nearly 20,000 registered voters.

And, according to Iowa Secretary of State Mike Mauro, there were few problems associated with the new way of registering.

“Overall, the process went very smoothly and (Election Day registration) was handled efficiently and expeditiously,” said Mauro. “Training of county auditors and precinct election officials was a crucial factor in making this process work.”

In 2007, Iowa became the eighth state to allow voters to register at the polls. The law took effect in January 2008, and last November was the first general election when it was in force.

Same-day voter registration laws have been criticized for making elections more vulnerable to fraud, but supporters have argued that the benefit of increased political participation outweighs the potential risk of a few more fraudulent votes.

As of Jan. 2, there are 710,437 registered Democrats and 599,163 registered Republicans. Independents still outnumber both parties with 731,977.

In December 2007, there were 27,000 more registered Democrats. By August, that gap had grown to a little more than 91,000. In fact, the gap between the two parties has grown wider every month since summer.

Iowa, long considered a battleground state, went overwhelmingly for Democrat Barack Obama for president this year and expanded the Democratic margins in the legislature.

In the race to become the next chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, each candidate has stressed the need to close that registration gap as a priority.

Statistics from the Iowa secretary of state through Monday afternoon show Democrats with 218,000 ballots requested and 168,000 cast — either by mail or in person at a satellite voting location. Republican requests are at 130,000, with 96,000 cast. No party voters have requested 112,000 ballots and returned 76,000.

Official Iowa Voter Registration Form (from Iowa Secretary of State)

The Democrats’ apparent 88,000-vote edge is more that George Bush’s 10,000-vote margin of victory in Iowa four years ago — but then, John Kerry won the early vote, too, only to lose on Election Day.

Voter registration in Iowa has topped 2 million for the first time, and, while voters with no party affiliation are still the single largest group, Democrats hold a 5.5 percent edge over Republicans.  Current active registration is just under 2,001,000. 34.9 percent are Democrats, while 29.6 percent are Republican and 35.5 percent are registered with no party.

The voter registration statistics run through Saturday’s deadline for traditional voter registration. Voters may still register using the new Election Day registration process, which requires an ID and a proof of current address. This is Iowa’s first general election with same-day registration.

Going into the 2004 presidential election, state voter registration was at 1,965,000. Both parties were at 31 percent, with Republicans holding a narrow, 4,000-voter edge. George Bush carried Iowa that year by just under 10,000 votes.

Party percentages normally drop in the run-up to a presidential election, as the newest voters tend to register with no party affiliation. But this year, Democrats have actually gained a half a percent since June at the expense of Republicans, whose percentage share of the electorate has decreased.  No party percentages have held steady.

Democrats have an edge in four of the states five congressional districts, trailing only in western Iowa’s fifth district. The Democratic registration edge is biggest in eastern Iowa’s second district.

The state’s hottest congressional race is in the 4th District, where Democrat Becky Greenwald is challenging incumbent Tom Latham. Democrats have a 9,000-voter registration advantage there.

Statewide, fewer than 1,000 voters have taken advantage of changes in state law that allow Green and Libertarian registration.

“We didn’t win Iowa last time,” Dean said in his first Iowa City visit since a rally the night before the 2004 caucuses. “If we win Iowa this time, we will win the presidency of the United States of America.”

Riding into town on a red white and blue Obama “Register For Change” bus, Dean stressed voter registration, early voting, and volunteering.

“We can’t afford to lose a single vote in Iowa, I’m not kidding. Not one,” said Dean, asking the mostly
student crowd to pretend the eager staffers in the back armed with voter registration forms ware big burly security guards. “They won’t let you past them until you get signed up.”

Dean emphasized generational change in his speech, which was part of a tour of college campuses.

“Barack Obama is the candidate of a new generation,” said Dean. “He’s older than you, but he thinks like you, he speaks like you. This is the time where you’re going to make a difference.”

“The mistake we made was after we changed America, we decided it was OK to sit back,” said the 59 year old Dean of his baby boom generation. “We removed ourselves from politics for a generation. You need to learn from our mistakes, George Bush and Dick Cheney would not be in the White House today if we had stayed involved. You can’t take a vacation from politics.”

Dean cited the importance of one on one persuasion in Tim Kaine’s 2005 victory for governor of Virginia. That race, shortly after Dean assumed the DNC chair was an early test of Dean’s “50 State Strategy” of campaigning everywhere, even in areas that have been historically Republican.

“We had people wither who knew the person or had something in common with them, and we knocked on their doors three times,” said Dean. “This is more than just a blitz like you’re used to, this is actually getting to know people and they’re much more likely to listen to you.”

The 50 State Strategy was at first derided by party insiders, but Obama embraced it early, and it has now paid off with a trifecta of early 2008 special election wins in heavily Republican congressional districts.

“We’ve got a lot in common with people in states that have been run by Republicans since before Ronald Reagan,” said former Iowa House minority leader Dick Myers, introducing Dean and praising the 50 State Strategy. “Now we’re electing people from Mississippi on the Democratic ticket. We’re electing people from Louisiana on the Democratic ticker.”

Myers was a key early Obama supporter in 2008, just as he was for Dean in 2004 and for Jimmy Carter in 1976. “We’ve got a great candidate – the best I’ve ever seen, and I’m an old, old man,” said Myers, a very energetic 73 years old. “I don’t care if you live to be 600, this is the most important election you’ll ever be involved in. I’ve been around Barack Obama for almost two years. Not getting paid or nothing, just observing, And with all my experience I can tell you — this guy is the real deal.”

Dean mingling and posing for pictures with students following the speech.

In many ways – strong appeal to young voters, successful use of the internet for fundraising and organizing — Obama’s successful path to the Democratic nomination was modeled on Dean’s unsuccessful 2004 campaign. “The party needed a backbone, and Howard Dean made people proud to be Democrats,” Nate Willems of Lisbon told Iowa Independent. Willems was one of the first staffers on Dean’s campaign, and is now running for the Iowa House.

“Dean had more of an issue oriented appeal – the war, tax cuts and No Child Left Behind,” said Willems, “and Obama is more about the big picture.”

Dean acknowledged as much. “Iraq and the economy and jobs, gas prices and health care are what this about in the short term,” he said. “But in the long term this is about healing America” after 30 years of divisive politics. “Your generation has rejected that and, so has Barack Obama. We need to start working on the things we do agree on to make the world a better place.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a partisan event without at least a little red meat, and Dean, who spent the week in St. Paul counter-messaging the Republican convention, offered a few servings. “I agree with Barack Obama, I don’t think they get it at all,” said Dean. “John McCain’s campaign is run by lobbyists, it is paid for by lobbyists, John McCain is owned by lobbyists.”

“We’re not the tax party – the Republicans are the borrow and spend party,” Dean said. “We can’t afford any more Bush-McCain economic policies. Are you going to believe John McCain and Sarah Palin on TV one night, or the record of the last eight years?”

Iowa started mailing cards in mid-April this year. Soon after the cards hit the mail,
“we found out that there was a printing error on some of the moved within county cards mailed to the voter’s new address,” said Sarah Reisetter of the secretary of state’s office. “The barcode printed underneath the delivery address on these cards by the printer was actually the barcode for the voter’s old address.”

Reisetter said cards mailed to the voter’s old address and to addresses outside the county where the voters were registered were correct.

“When we discovered the problem, the printer immediately halted printing any more within county move cards,” said Reisetter. “Many of the post offices manually sorted the cards and delivered them to the new address printed on the card despite the barcoding problem, however some of the cards were returned to the county commissioners as undeliverable.”

Reisetter said printing was halted, and a second set of cards were sent to the new, moved within county addresses. The re-sent cards are a distinctive yellow, rather than white like the original mailing. “We did not want voters inactivated in error due to this issue,” she said, adding, “Needless to say, I am now able to read postal barcodes!”

If your mail gets the Elvis treatment — return to sender, address unknown — you get put on what’s called “inactive” status. Inactive voters have to show ID to vote or get off the inactive list. After two general elections on the inactive list, then voters can be deleted. To delete you sooner than that, county auditors need official notice from your new community, proof that you’re dead, or your signature.

The annual National Change of Address (NCOA) mailing is a provision of Motor Voter that’s designed to help clean up the voter files by giving voters an extra opportunity to update their addresses — or get Elvised.

Each year, the Secretary of State’s office gets the U.S. Postal Service’s NCOA database and cross-references it with the state voter file to find people who have moved, but not updated their voter registration yet. They update the voter’s address to the new address reported by the Post Office, then mail cards to both the voter’s old and new addresses. The return address is the local county auditor for the old address where they’re registered. (Auditors used to send out the mailing themselves until a couple years ago, when the statewide voter registration system went on line.)  The cards include a place for the voter to sign and confirm the new address.

The tricky part starts when the cards start coming back to the auditors. NCOA cards include the language required by law, but don’t really explain what happens.

Some folks have it really easy. If all you’ve done is move across town, your address gets updated. You don’t even have to sign your card and send it back. But if you’ve done anything more complicated, you need to make sure you know what you’re doing.

If the NCOA database reports a move out of state or across county lines, the voter gets placed on inactive status.  Same thing happens if your card gets Elvised from the new address.

The voters who face the most confusion are those who have moved across county lines within Iowa.  The cards seem self-evident.  My old address is, my new address is, sign here. But even though Iowa has a statewide registration database, as required under the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Iowa law still says registration is done at the county level.

Let’s say you’ve moved from Iowa City to Des Moines. You get an official looking card that says, “My old address is Iowa City, my new address is Des Moines.” You think, “that’s nice of them, I needed to do that,” sign it, and send it back. Danger, Will Robinson: You’ve just canceled your registration in Johnson County — but you haven’t registered in Polk County. You need to fill out a new registration form.

NCOA hits young, mobile populations the most, but another group that’s impacted is the snowbird population. The Postal Service considers changes of addresses that last longer than a month permanent. So if you spend each winter in Arizona, and get your mail forwarded, the NCOA process assumes you’ve moved out of state. And as the luck of timing would have it, the database is usually updated around March 1, right at the end of snowbird season.

The good news is that this year, Election Day voter registration will give you a second chance if you find yourself Elvised at the polls. But that’s still a little harder than just showing up and voting, because you need ID and proof of your address. Your best bet is to get a voter registration form, go to the courthouse, and follow The King’s advice: “This time I’m gonna take it myself, and put it right in her hand.”