So many people have registered to vote in Hamilton County, election workers had to come in Saturday just to process bin after bin of voter applications, officials say.

That’s happening all across the state. Registration in time for the Nov. 4 election ended Oct. 6, and more than 300,000 people in Tennessee may have applied in the last few months, officials estimated. There’s no final total, and no one is sure this year’s massive voter registration effort has broken records — yet.

“As usual, we are seeing an overwhelming number of voter applications leading up to the deadline,” said State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson. “Voter registration goes in cycles.”

In 2004, Tennessee registered 344,500 new voters between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30.

This year, Mr. Thompson estimates the new voters could equal 300,000 or more, but county election commissions don’t officially report their numbers until December.

“All of our big counties — Shelby, Knox, Hamilton and Davidson — are all rushing to get everything on the books before early voting begins,” Mr. Thompson said. “Part of the problem is that we are still getting the applications that are postmarked Oct. 6.”

In Hamilton County, more than 8,521 people registered between Sept. 1 and Oct. 9, said Charlotte Mullis-Morgan, chief deputy elections administrator for the Hamilton County Election Commission.

But there’s still hundreds, if not a thousand or more, applications waiting to be processed. In earlier counts, Ms. Mullis-Morgan reported that 12,000 people had registered, but on Friday a clear count wasn’t available because there were so many applications in queue. She said an official count would be available this week.

Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has made voter registration part of his grassroots approach to winning the White House, campaigners say.

Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman John Bailes estimates Sen. Obama’s campaign, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign and workers with the party have registered thousands of new voters here.

“Of the 300,000 people registered in Tennessee so far, I’m betting (Democrats) can claim to have registered 60 to 80 percent of those,” Mr. Bailes said.

Republicans have registered voters, too, said state Republican Party Chairwoman Robin Smith. But the GOP isn’t as aggressive as Democrats, she said.

“We have voter registration available all year long. ... It’s not something that we do in the last couple months of the election year,” she said.

Democrats use voter registration as a “tactic,” she said. Republicans have a much more steady-hand approach, offering applications to anyone who asks, educating party leaders and how to register voters, she said.

Mr. Bailes thinks Democrats in Tennessee have been so successful they may actually turn a solidly-red state into a win for Sen. Obama in November.

The last poll taken Sept. 29 by Rasmussen Reports of 500 likely voters in Tennessee showed Sen. John McCain handily carrying the state, 58 to 39 percent. Mr. Bailes thinks those polls are invalid because so many people have registered since then.

“You can win by having the power structure on your side, or you can win by organizing a lot of people from the ground up,” Mr. Bailes said.

A Mason-Dixson Polling & Research Inc. poll conducted for the Times Free Press Sept. 22-24 of 625 registered likely voters showed Sen. McCain leading Sen. Obama 55 to 39 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percent.

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