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There is almost no path to victory for presidential challenger Mitt Romney that doesn’t include winning Florida. A key part of winning Florida is registering Republicans to vote. As Whitney Ray tells us, voter registration is way down when compared to 2008, but a campaign launched today aims to kick registration efforts for all parties into overdrive.

These FAMU students are registering people to vote, but they’re going to have to speed up their efforts if they plan on catch up with 2008’s voter registration numbers.

“I think there is definitely a catching up we need to do in Florida in regards to voter registration,” said Ciara Taylor.

There are a lot of ways to look at the data and a lot of factors involved, but if you compare January 2008 though July 2008, and then look at the same time period this year, you’ll see roughly 210-thousand fewer voters have registered.

But there’s still plenty of time to sign up before the General Election. Floridians have until October 9th to register. The Florida Division of Elections is launching a campaign to spread the word. Secretary of State Ken Detzner says the timing of the campaign is strategic.

“I think we are now entering a period of time when people are really focusing on the candidates. The conventions are over. We wanted to really hit the peak period of time,” said Detzner.

The state’s efforts are being supported by the League of Women Voters. Earlier this year the voter advocacy group joined a court challenge against a new 48 hour deadline for turning in registration applications. They won and now the deadline is 10 days.

“Over the next two weeks we are going to try to get as many people registered in person as we can,” said Jessica Lowe Minor with the League of Women Voters.

While the league awaited the court’s ruling it suspended registration drives for almost a year. Now efforts are underway to make up for lost time and lost voters.

The state campaign to get out the vote includes three PSAs which are slated to air in most Florida TV markets. The entire campaign is costing taxpayers about 30-thousand dollars.