Courtesy of media.npr.org

UC Santa Barbara and Isla Vista voter registration drives set a new record this week, registering over 13,000 new voters for the November election.

This figure indicates approximately 2,000 more registered voters than ever previously registered in the UCSB and Isla Vista precincts. Student groups registered over 11,000 voters for the 2012 election.

The Santa Barbara County elections office has not yet reported 13,000 newly registered voters–this is a figure given by the local voter registration drives. The county elections office will provide its official number after “a couple days,” according to county elections supervisor Hector Gonzalez-Loera.

A majority of the voter registration cards accounted for in this figure comes from the coordinated efforts of the Yes on E&F campaign and the Santa Barbara Democratic Party.

According to Darcel Elliott, the campaign manager for the Yes on E&F campaign, there were approximately 8,800 voters who newly registered after July 1 and before Oct. 13.

Elliott said the Yes on E&F campaign and the Santa Barbara Democratic Party registered an additional 2,221 UCSB and Isla Vista residents after Oct.13. Other voter registration drives, such as those by CALPIRG, Associated Students and the UCSB Voter Registration Volunteer Coalition, also registered over 200 voters after Oct. 13.

This makes for approximately 11,300 newly registered voters following the June primary. Local voter registration drives are then able to approximate 13,000 newly registered voters when adding this figure to the 2,000 to 3,000 voters registered for the June primary.

As of Monday, the county elections office reports a total of 19,194 registered voters in the UCSB and Isla Vista precincts. 9,773 of these voters are registered Democrats, 1,428 are registered Republicans, 211 are registered Libertarians, 278 are registered American Independents and 7,265 registered voters have no party preference.

These figures do not reflect the final number of registered voters (the county elections is still counting the remaining cards), nor do they reflect the number of UCSB or Isla Vista residents who have newly registered since the June primary. Many students have since changed addresses.

UCSB currently leads other universities such as UCLA, which reported approximately 10,600 registered voters on its Facebook page, and UC San Diego, which reported approximately 3,000 registered voters from the UCSD voter registration coalition.