Kyle Bell

The statewide race for Indiana’s 84 delegates has resulted in a surge of new voters. According to the Secretary of State, Indiana has seen 150,000 new voters since the start of the year. That does not include the 52,000 pending applications submitted ahead of the April 7 registration deadline for Indiana’s May 6 primary. Indiana could conceivably add in the ballpark of 500,000 voters for the year by the time the November election rolls around. Nearly 20,000 of the new registrants are from St. Joseph County (South Bend) and roughly the same in Marion County (Indianapolis). Both figures bode well for Obama.

SOUTH BEND — Voter registration offices and county clerks here and around the state are struggling to keep up with a huge increase in voter registrations and absentee voter applications, and some are blaming a state system that they say can’t handle the volume.

The Statewide Voter Registration System is an electronic database created in 2006 that links voter registration records in all of Indiana’s 92 counties.

Pam Brunette, Democratic member of the St. Joseph County Voter Registration Board, and Linda Silcott, Republican member, said the system is slow and cumbersome. It has taken as long as six to 10 minutes to handle a single registration, Brunette said, and the county is dealing with thousands of them.