By Thomas Grundmeier

Daily Staff Writer

The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries have passed by with unprecedented attendance records. The surge of voters overwhelmed some precincts, leaving some asking if the caucusing process needs to be reevaluated.

“The problem on the Democratic side was there was a big influx of people but in some cases the staff didn’t seem prepared to handle those kinds of numbers,” said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State.

Several media outlets have reported inconsistencies in the way voting was handled, especially in overcrowded Democratic precincts, including precinct captains allowing people to enter after the 7 p.m. start time and IDs not being checked properly.

“They need to undertake measures to ensure the validity of the process,” Bystrom said. “I don’t think the process would have been different as far as results, but the party does need to respond.”

Turnout for the Democrats almost doubled that of the Republicans, with about 239,000 Democrats and 118,600 Republicans participating in the Jan. 3 Iowa Caucuses, according to the Iowa Republican Party’s and Iowa Democrat Party’s web sites, respectively.

“I think the two-to-one turnout ratio that Democrats had over the Republicans just demonstrates that the six candidates the Democrats fielded were very strong,” said Carrie Giddins, communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party.

Mary Tiffany, communications director for the Iowa Republican Party, argued the attendance discrepancy reflected the decreased presence of Republican candidates – specifically Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn. – who chose to focus their efforts on states with later primaries.

“Our candidates had a more national strategy,” said Tiffany.

In 2004, turnout for the Iowa Democratic caucus was about 124,000. The Republican party did not caucus in 2004 because President Bush ran for his second term unopposed.

New Hampshire had similarly high numbers: 233,100 for GOP voters and 283,200 for Democrats. That’s nearly a 30 percent increase over the 218,000 Democrats participating in 2004.

All eyes currently rest on the future – specifically, the upcoming South Carolina primaries, Super Tuesday and the general election in November. The field remains relatively open, as Iowa winners Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., failed to make a repeat performance in New Hampshire.

Obama’s and Huckabee’s campaigns were able to bring in the big numbers, but the senators accomplished this through very different means. Obama flooded the media with $9 million in television ads, more than one-third of the $24 million total spent by his party before Dec. 28. The Illinois Senator received overwhelming support from young and old voters alike.

Huckabee spent only a fraction of the money and time spent by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was the projected winner according to many polls. Instead, Bystrom said Huckabee found support from Evangelical Christian churches and home school networks, which proved to be enough to tip the scales in his favor.

“I think it shows that grass roots politics work, that Huckabee, without much organization and money, was able to rise in the polls,” Tiffany said.