Yesterday was the last day for voter registration in Pennsylvania, and Penn groups will soon see whether their efforts to bolster the student electorate paid off.
While an official count is not yet available, elections experts say that voter registration is generally up in Philadelphia, but not as significantly as during a presidential election year.
"My expectation is that we will have a lot of new registrations, but not on the magnitude of 2004," said Chris Sheridan, policy director for the Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based political watchdog group.
College senior Bren Darrow, president of Penn Leads The Vote, said the organization "personally registered more voters this year than in the past," but that there was no way of knowing yet how many Penn students registered independently or through other groups.
The city will get feedback on registration number totals within the next few days, he said.
Penn Leads The Vote sponsored a competition among Penn's fraternities and sororities to see which chapter could register the most voters.
Darrow said that the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and the Alpha Phi sorority were two of the most successful chapters.
College junior Mark Stagliano, president of Phi Kappa Sigma, said the fraternity held a voter-registration drive outside its house on Locust Walk and collected about 50 new registrations.
"I think the brothers are aware of the importance of participating in the electoral process and saw helping to register others as a worthwhile endeavor," he said.
The president of Alpha Phi, Nursing senior Lindsey Gerngross, said 36 members of the sorority registered after learning more about the voting process from a Penn Leads The Vote representative.
"The organization provided information regarding issues such as being registered in two states, a common reason why members hadn't registered in the past," she said.
The Penn College Democrats also worked to get voters signed up.
College junior Nathan Hake, president of Penn Democrats, said he was pleased with the registration numbers on campus.
"We are now going to dedicate ourselves to getting those voters to the polls," Hake said.
College Republicans Chairman and Wharton junior Michael Shiely, said his group registered about the same amount of students this year as last but that the group's primary election-day efforts have been concentrated elsewhere.
"Our numbers this year for voter-registration forms were about the same as last year," Shiely wrote in an e-mail. "Unlike the 2004 election cycle, our main focus this year has been on grassroots activities and election-day planning."
