Voter registration drives aimed at young people are turning 18- to 24-year-olds into an important variable in the presidential election, especially in decisive battleground states such as Michigan where nearly 100,000 young people have registered in recent months and Wisconsin, where the numbers are even higher.
Officials in several other battleground states New Mexico, Ohio and Florida among them see clear signs that more young people are interested in this election.
And some election experts believe that polls of ''likely voters'' often miss young people because the population is so mobile.
In Wisconsin, the New Voters Project claims to have registered more than 109,000 young people numbers election officials say they have ''no reason to doubt.''