Mark Lungariello, and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

The Journal News

Rockland County election officials ordered nearly 47,000 more presidential primary ballots than usual this year, and expect so many disputes from unregistered voters demanding to cast their ballots that a judge will be stationed at the Board of Elections all day Tuesday to rule on their claims.

Heading into the New York state primary election, the number of first-time Rockland voters is on a pace to match or surpass the figure from 2008, when President Obama’s first run for the White House sparked new interest in the race.

“Presidential years, always a lot of excitement," said Kristen Stavisky, Rockland’s Democratic election commissioner and party chair. "A bunch of people sign up to vote or check that they’re registered, decide that they want to get involved in the primaries, try to change their enrollment."

New York primary voting: 7 things you need to know

NEW YORK PRIMARY: Why the primary matters and how it works

CANDIDATES: Who could spoil the GOP race for Trump?

CHART: New voter registration

"There’s a higher volume and there’s more sense of a buzz this year because it’s really a contested primary," she said. "New York is not used to being in play at all."

County election officials said more than 35,000 new voters have registered to vote in Rockland and Westchester over the past 10 months — many of them filing right up to the deadlines for doing so. Over the same time period, more than 3,600 voters in the two counties switched their party affiliation, qualifying them to vote in the party primaries, and another 1,800 who were not affiliated joined one of the two major parties.

The primary is the most significant in New York in decades because it is earlier in the nomination process, is still being contested on both the GOP and Democratic sides, and includes two New York natives and a transplanted New Yorker.

The GOP front-runner is Donald Trump, a Manhattan billionaire developer born in Queens; Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Brooklyn native, is trailing Chappaqua's Hillary Clinton, a former Senator and U.S. Secretary of State, in the Democratic race.

'VALUES': The Most New York moments at the Dem debate

EVENTS: Where to see the candidates

On the GOP side, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are also campaigning for New York votes. Former Republican hopeful Ben Carson will appear on the ballot as well, but has ended his campaign.

Expect confusion

The spike in interest in the primary means headaches for local election officials. Westchester County Board of Elections Commissioner Reginald LaFayette said the message to residents on Tuesday is simple: If you’re not registered with one of the two major political parties, stay home.

“Don’t come to the dance if you’re not going to dance,” said LaFayette, who is also the county's Democratic Party chairman. “We’re very much concerned that people that are not eligible to vote will show up, people who aren’t registered to vote.”

He said the elections board has already seen a large number of people requesting absentee ballots who aren’t registered to a party and therefore not eligible to vote. Many insist they are a party member, he said, and employees have to pull their records to show they aren’t.

In cases where residents contest their eligibility, Westchester is stacking enough affidavit ballots for 80 percent of registered voters. Affidavit ballots will be reviewed to determine if they are valid and counted only if they are.

Like Stavisky, LaFayette said he is noticing increased interest, though he's not sure it's merited.

“I think the whole media (coverage) around the election, both on the Republican and the Democratic side, put people to feel that (the primary is) closer than it really is,” he said. “That, if you look at it, New York means more than it really does.”

Inside the numbers

It’s far too late for registered voters to switch parties in time for the primary – the deadline passed in October. Two of Trump’s children are among those who didn’t switch in time. For new voters there was a March 25 deadline.

Data supplied by the Rockland and Westchester county boards of election showed spikes in new voter registration as that deadline approached – with 27,479 new voters in Westchester and 8,842 new voters in Rockland overall since May 2015.

Democrats saw the most new members: 14,741 in Westchester and 4,045 in Rockland. There were 4,316 and 1,752 new Republicans in Westchester and Rockland, respectively.

In Westchester, 2,472 voters switched registration ahead of the primary; 1,267 voters in Rockland did so. Some 771 unaffiliated Westchester voters joined the Democratic Party, along with 178 Republicans and 175 members of other parties. Republicans gained 263 former non-affiliates, 210 Democrats and 76 former members of minor parties.

In Rockland, 313 unaffiliated voters switched to the Democratic Party and 89 signed up as Republicans for the primary. Additionally, 97 Democrats and 43 members of other parties switched to Republican, while 108 Rockland Republicans and 104 members of minor parties became Democrats.

Tony Sayegh, a Republican political consultant and Fox News contributor, said the local numbers reflect an "overdue" national realignment of Reagan Democrats joining the GOP. The party can grow, he said, by tapping into voters who feel disconnected from government and who previously didn't align themselves with a particular party.

"I do think the Republican Party is having much more engagement from the populist diaspora that feels underserved by both parties," he said. "I think we're all primed for some major movement — I don't know if it's necessarily a revolution — but a populist movement that isn't going to stop after this primary."

It's about the turnout

C. Scott Vanderhoef, a former Rockland county executive who now co-chairs the Palisades Institute at Dominican College in Orangeburg, said the registration numbers may not be the whole story of this year's primary vote.

Watch “not just the registration, but who comes out to vote," Vanderhoef said. "If you look back, I’m not sure the registration numbers are as important as the actual turnout. The turnout here will be fascinating. Are Republicans just fed up, as many are, with the Republican primary? If they stay home, what does that do?"

"And that’s true also for Hillary. She’s got a lot of strong, establishment Democrats," he said. "If they just are frustrated and the Sanders team gets the young folks out and the blue collar folks ramping up, it’s a different story.”

Twitter: @marklungariello