With her certificate of naturalization in hand, Arelis Bonilla rushed from the district courthouse to the New York City Board of Elections office on the last day of voter registration for new citizens last week. "It feels like I count more because I'm part of the United States and I can be more personally involved by voting," said Bonilla, 21, who is from the Dominican Republic and now lives in Washington Heights, after registering on Oct. 22.

Bonilla is one of New York City's many recently registered voters. Between Feb. 14 and Oct. 13, there were 111,567 new registrations in Manhattan and 41,854 in the Bronx, according to the city Board of Election's statistics. Christopher Riley, director of communication and public affairs for the board, said, "This election has been so highly publicized that it has grabbed everyone's attention and I think that people who in the past thought that their vote didn't count, saw what happened in Florida in the 2000 election and realized that every vote counts."

According to the board's statistics for the total number of registered voters as of the Oct. 22 deadline, there were 1.1 million registered voters in Manhattan, of which 727,071 were Democrats and 132,294 were Republicans, which is a 26.7 percent increase from the 2000 election, when there were 876,120 registered voters. In the Bronx, there were 695,932 registered voters, of which 512,290 were Democrats and 55,326 were Republicans, which is a 22.4 percent increase from the 2000 election, when there were 568,751 registered voters.

This is one of the largest increases in registrations in recent years, according to the board. The only larger jump since 1980 was between 1984 and 1988, when the number of registered voters increased by 38 percent in Manhattan and 23.6 percent in the Bronx. Mary Lou Urban, co-president of the city chapter of the League of Women Voters, said she thought that registration is up because of the many contentious issues involved, including the war in Iraq. "People have concerns that they want addressed, like social security, the war, education, prescription drugs and all sorts of things that span the age groups," she said in a telephone interview. "It's not just the young or the old, this election concerns everybody."

Riley said that the board recently bought 400 voting machines, for about $731,000, to accommodate the increase in voters because the state election law requires that any district that has more than 800 voters must have at least two machines. He added that the majority of the machines were purchased from Georgia, which switched from the mechanical lever voting machines to the electronic machines.

Many groups, in addition to the elections board, conducted voter registration drives in recent months which played a part in the increase in registration, Riley said. He said the board gave voter registration cards to groups such as the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal rights organization whose members then distributed the cards at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where the naturalization proceedings occur. Stan Mark, program director for the fund, said in a telephone interview, "It's a great audience. There are a lot of people and they want to participate in the political process. It's their first act as citizens so it has a great impact on them."

There was also an effort to mobilize Puerto Rican voters. Puerto Rican Gov. Sila M. Calderón's administration, through the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, which aims to empower Puerto Ricans, launched an initiative in 2002 to register 300,000 voters in 10 states with large concentrations of Puerto Ricans by the 2004 presidential election. Edwin Pieters, the administration's director for voter registration in New York, said that the campaign achieved its goal: there were about 331,000 new Puerto Rican voters nationally and New York accounted for 133,484 of them. Pieters also said that of the state's total, 22,932 new voters were in the Bronx and 14,414 were in Manhattan. "We did this because whatever happens on the mainland impacts Puerto Rico, so when Puerto Ricans come over here, they need to get involved in the political process," Pieters said.

While the education fund and the federal affairs administration conducted nonpartisan voter registration drives, the Democratic and Republican parties targeted neighborhoods that seemed likely to support their respective candidates.

Seth Gladstone, deputy political director for the New York State John Kerry campaign, said in a telephone interview, "We sent teams out onto the street, to public events, street fairs, city parks, tourist locations and neighborhoods that are underrepresented at the polls." Gladstone said these neighborhoods included Harlem, Washington Heights and areas in the Bronx. "These are places where we feel the majority of residents tend to be Democratic in their thinking but are less likely to be registered to vote," he said. "It's important to do this because we are working not only for John Kerry, but also for the Democratic Party. We're working for the future. We want people to be involved in the process and if you get people registered and thinking about voting, it can help us with the mayor's or the governor's race later."

Bill O'Reilly, spokesman for the New York County Republican Committee, said that the Republicans also did voter registration drives in Washington Heights. "A lot of attention has been focused there, probably because of the values in the area," he said in a telephone interview. "There is an emphasis on the family and there are a lot of Catholic voters that tend to vote Republican." O'Reilly added that the Republican outreach efforts were geared more towards future elections. "New York is not expected to be in play so we're focused on 2005, when Mayor Bloomberg will be up for reelection," he said.

Still, the GOP effort convinced Maria Melendez, 47, a Washington Heights resident who said she planned to vote for President Bush, as she did in 2000. "He should be reelected because he worked so hard in Iraq," she said last week at a local park. "I think the war was a good idea. He tried to defend the United States."

Juanita Medina, 46, an East Harlem resident who said she had not voted in recent years, said she planned to vote in this election because she was against the war. "Bush is sending our kids to war to die, and that's not for me," she said in East Harlem last week. "I don't see him doing much else so I'm going to vote for Kerry."

Medina said she noticed that several community-based organizations set up tables throughout the neighborhood to register voters in recent months. Henry Serrano, the electoral organizer for Community Voices Heard, an East Harlem based advocacy group, said that its members registered 2,670 voters during the summer and 200 to 300 since then. He said that registration, however, was not enough. "A name on a voter registration card isn't the best guarantee that people will vote," he said in his office. "It doesn't work without relationship building and education. You have to talk to them about how these legislators play a role in their lives, not about a vague sense of civic duty." He added that the group mailed information to the voters and called them. "We're trying to engage people," he said.

Giselle Mendez, 18, a South Bronx resident, said she intends to participate in the political process beyond this election. "I took it upon myself to register to vote and it feels good," she said at the state Senate District 28 Community/Candidates Forum in East Harlem on Oct. 26. "This is an opportunity for my voice to be heard. If more people vote and get involved in politics, maybe politicians will see that we do care and focus on the issues that we are concerned about, like jobs and money