COLUMBUS, Ohio – With the presidential election expected to be a nail-biter, over a dozen battleground states (search) are gearing up an unprecedented effort to sign up as many new voters as possible.
It's almost like a voter registration (search) race between Republicans and Democrats.
"There are millions of unregistered voters though out there … and each party is doing its best at this point to identify them and register as many as they can before the fall," said political analyst Rhodes Cook.
A victory for Bush in Ohio in 2000 was a close one — less than 4 percentage points — and much closer than Republicans expected. So, to improve their odds this year, the Buckeye State's GOP is out to get 90,000 new voters registered in Republican-friendly parts of the state.
"We kind of learned a lesson there and we've been engaged in a pretty extensive voter registration drive since the first of the year," said Bob Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party (search).
Ohio Democrats are also working their party strongholds. The group, America Coming Together (search), is helping Democrats and paying people to round up new voters. The group reportedly spent over $1 million in Ohio alone.
Both parties have until early October to submit paperwork on new voters.
Click on the video box near the top of this story to watch a report by FOX News' Steve Brown.
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