Chowing down on a combination of cookie dough, chocolate chip, caramel, and vanilla ice cream at Newport on the Levee, the University of Louisville student said she wants a president who cares about young people, health care, African-Americans and education. She is, she said, "really excited" about voting for the first time.

"Now I know that I can have a say in who runs my country and how," said Ngwang, who was born in Oklahoma but grew up in Cameroon, Africa, before moving to Frankfort six years ago. "I see this opportunity as a blessing."

If the political parties and independent groups are correct, first-time voters will inundate polling places on Election Day.

And it's not just young people. Some are new citizens. Some are people who previously sat out elections.

At least 10 percent of voters in this presidential election will be first-time voters, estimates Rebecca Vigil-Giron, New Mexico's secretary of state and president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, who generally run elections.

"Basically, they've been activated to support one candidate or another," she said. "There's a real sense of enthusiasm out there right now."

How that compares with previous years isn't clear, Vigil-Giron said. But there's no question voter registration rolls are booming nationwide.

In Ohio, a key swing state, the total number of registered voters reached a record 7.7 million out of an estimated 8.14 million eligible Ohioans. In Hamilton County alone more than 64,000 new voters registered this year. Boone County could see at least a 50 percent increase in registered voters.

Not all of those newly registered voters will show up on Election Day. But most experts forecast a big increase in first-time voters for several reasons:

• Demographics. There are an estimated 14.4 million voters who have turned 18 since the last presidential election, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). That's the largest number since the 1980. (Young voters, however, make up an increasingly smaller share of the electorate, thanks to baby boomers and the fact that Americans are living longer.)

• Voter registration efforts: This year has seen an unprecedented effort to register voters on both sides. Groups like Rock the Vote, Smackdown the Vote and Declare Yourself signed up young voters; Muslims, Latinos, even the poor were targeted by voter registration drives. And groups like America Coming Together and the political parties claimed to have registered millions; ACT claims to have registered 85,000 new voters in Ohio alone.

• Life and death issues. The 2000 election came during a time of peace and prosperity, fought by two men most people knew very little about, and thus did not have strong feelings about. This election comes with the country at war, and with important states like Ohio hurting economically.

• The 2000 election. The "my vote doesn't count" mentality was shattered by the 2000 election, in which Florida, as well as states like New Mexico, were decided by a few hundred votes.

"If there was something we all learned in 2000, it's that every vote does count - state by state, county by county, city by city," said Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which estimates it has registered about 200,000 Latino voters, about 80 percent first-timers.

Not all newly registered voters are first-timers. Some might have moved to new addresses; others might have been purged from voter rolls for not voting and are now simply renewing.

Kevin Wood, 20, of Bellevue got registered at church. He's excited about voting, if only because he used to go with his parents when they voted, and "it looked important."

His friend, Andy Hines, 20, of North College Hill, was registered by "some guy on the corner."

"I do think my vote matters," he said. "Ohio's supposed to be a deciding factor."

E-mail cweiser@gannett.com