When she was in college, Kate Simmons sat out the 1996 presidential election, even though she was old enough to vote.

“I was on Planet Colgate,'” she said, referring to her cloistered existence at the liberal arts university in upstate New York. Majoring in biology and English, she, like many of her classmates, never registered to vote.

Now Simmons wants to change that student mindset. The Chicago native is heading up a statewide drive aimed at adding 5,000 college-age Mainers to the voter rolls, part of a national effort to get 265,000 more students to the polls.

Her group is one of many looking to boost Maine’s voter turnout this year.

Given the closeness of the 2000 election, their mission should be easier since most Americans witnessed individual ballots called into dispute in Florida by the Bush and Gore campaigns.

The narrow margin

In fact, activists are paying more attention to this state than most due to Gore’s slim margin of victory in 2000, especially in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, where the Democratic candidate eked out a win by less than 2 percent.

“Our sense and the sense of the elections office is that there is more interest and there are more organized efforts in Maine than ever before,” said Deputy Secretary of State Doug Dunbar.

Requests for registration materials have been flooding his office and have shown no sign of slowing, he said.

While he understands the message these voter registration groups are sending to voters in the wake of the 2000 elections about the importance of voting, Dunbar said, “We’ve always recognized that every vote counts.”

His office has assisted these groups by supplying them with educational literature such as its 2004 voter guide, absentee voter applications and registration forms. Most of the groups are nonpartisan and interested only in seeking a higher turnout by voters of all parties, he said. Some have focused on specific demographics.

Among the groups active in Maine are: The League of Women Voters, The White House Project (aimed at women voters) and the New Voters Project (aimed at young voters), which Simmons heads in this state.

Additionally, each of the presidential campaigns is undertaking its own voter registration efforts. Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Party, said during a recent visit to Maine that the GOP hopes to register 8,000 new Republicans here. Currently, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 23,000 voters statewide.

Special interest groups also are interested in registering like-minded voters, including the Alliance for Maine’s Future (business) and the AFL-CIO (labor).

A prized No. 1

In the past, Maine has outperformed other states in voter turnout, says Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky. Maine led the nation in both 1992 and 1996. In 2000, it finished second.

“We very much want to be No. 1 again,” he said. Not just to be on top, he added. “We want people to be involved. It makes people better citizens, better neighbors and builds better communities.”

To that end, his office has its own registration effort, Promote the Vote 2004, which includes a new “eDemocracy” section on the state’s Web site. It answers questions on everything from how to register to poll locations. For that information, go to www.state.me.us/ where access to eDemocracy is in the left-hand column, under Features.

Gwadosky’s office also is overseeing production of public service announcements, produced by college students, aimed at urging young people to register and vote.

Simmons’ group, New Voters Project, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose goal is to see that as many as possible of the nation’s nearly 26 million Americans aged 18 to 24 are registered to vote.

In 2000, only 36 percent of the eligible U.S. voters in that age group cast ballots for president of the United States. In Maine, the numbers were better. In fact, Maine has one of the highest voting rates among American youth.

In the last election, Maine ranked third, with 60 percent of voters in that age group going to the polls. Moreover, Maine leads the nation in the percentage increase in young voters between 1972 – when 18-year-olds got the vote – and 2000. Although 19 percent more young people in Maine have voted over the past 32 years, the numbers for their national counterparts have dropped.

In June, Simmons set up shop in Portland.

Nationwide, her group has targeted six priority states, where workers will canvass neighborhoods for new voters. Their presence in Maine won’t be quite that visible, she said, but it’s one of eight additional states they’re making a push in.

In this state, she has joined with the Secretary of State’s Office to target voting-age students by collaborating with administrators at Maine’s colleges and universities.

Students often don’t vote because they don’t realize they can, she said.

“These folks will vote if you ask them,” she said.

Another group, Maine People’s Alliance, is targeting disenfranchised low-income families likely to be sympathetic to MPA’s core concerns, such as universal health care, strong environmental protections and adequate public education funding.

Since kicking off its campaign in early June, MPA is more than half way to achieving its goal of registering 10,000 new voters by Sept. 20, said Jake Grindle, community organizer for the Androscoggin Valley chapter.

After that date, the group plans to switch gears, concentrating on absentee balloting as part of its “Vote from Home” campaign, Grindle said.