Even if every registered voter in Hawai'i casts a ballot today, officials with the state Office of Elections say they are ready.

They have their ballots. They have their voting machines. They have the precinct workers.

"We've been working hard at recruiting the number of poll workers we need," said Rex Quidilla, Office of Elections voter services coordinator. "The office plans for each and every election for a 100 percent turnout. There's no other way to plan."

They planned that way for the September primary when a historically low number of registered voters — 36.9 percent — turned out.

The state has 691,356 registered voters and 339 polling places around the state.

Unlike in years past, when election officials put out pleas for more election poll workers, this year there are just enough workers to fill the 3,600 polling site positions, Quidilla said. However, should someone call in sick this morning, and there is no stand-by worker, an elections staffer will come to the rescue, he said.

Already, the signs indicate that more people will be voting today than in previous general elections. Not only is it an election year, but the Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, is favored in Hawai'i because of the time he spent here as a youth.

The first hint that this might be a banner election year came during the Democratic caucuses, said University of Hawai'i associate professor Ira Rohter. An estimated 30,000 people in Hawai'i cast a preference for their candidate during the Democratic caucus, Rohter said, three times more than past years.

"It's the presidential election that's drawing people," Rohter said. "And it's the times that are energizing people and bringing out the vote. People want to vote for a candidate that represents a change."

If early voting is any indication of the surge, by the time walk-in polls closed statewide on Saturday, more than 69,655 voters cast ballots, compared with the previous high of 29,000 in 2004.

"It's definitely a banner year for early voting," said Neal Milner, a UH political analyst. "But we've never reached the record turnout of 1960, the first presidential election after statehood."

The public will get the first results of their voting sometime after 7:30 p.m., Quidilla said. Polls close at 6 p.m., but often there is a line of last-minute voters. State law says you have to be in line before the polls close in order to be able to cast your ballot.

The first tally will include the absentee ballots and walk-ins from the past 10 days of early voting, he said.

Officials spend the day tallying mail-in ballots at counting centers in every county, Quidilla said.

At Democratic Party headquarters, more than 100,000 phone calls have been made to encourage voters to get out the vote, said Chuck Freedman, Democratic Party executive director in Hawai'i.

"Having a good candidate helped us register new voters," Freedman said. "Anecdotally, we've seen a remarkable turnout of young people that we've not seen before for a candidate or a campaign."

Similarly, at the Hawai'i Republican Party, 7,000 people were contacted on Saturday alone, to encourage them to vote, said Willes Lee, party chairman.

Lee predicted: "It's going to be a great election. We're pleased with the increased voter turnout. As a party this is what we do: Mobilize and support our candidates."