As the Clinton and Obama campaigns canvass Wisconsin, municipal and county clerks are bracing for a big voter turnout.

On Monday, Dane County Clerk Robert Ohlsen ordered an extra 25,000 ballots, meaning the total 275,000 ballots could handle a turnout of 75 percent of the county 's 367,000 eligible voters.

Meanwhile, Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl is calling for 60 more poll workers -- who make $10.92 an hour -- to help prevent long lines in Downtown precincts.

In 2004, the presidential primary featuring Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards and a hard-fought referendum on the Ho-Chunk 's tribe 's DeJope casino drew about 45 percent turnout in the county.

When Ohlsen ordered ballots in December, he said it seemed Wisconsin wouldn 't be a big factor in choosing either party 's presidential nominee. There are only a smattering of local primary contests.

Now, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are locked in a tight race for the Democratic nomination and Republican John McCain is still trying to fend off Mike Huckabee. The campaigns are here and national media attention is building.

Ohlsen, who is predicting a 50 to 55 percent turnout, and other clerks are making sure the polls have enough ballots and poll workers.

"I 'd rather err in having too many, " he said. "If it snows Tuesday (Feb. 19), we can wallpaper the office with the extra ballots. "

Witzel-Behl is predicting 52 percent turnout in Madison, higher than the 49 percent four years ago. With a week to go, the city has already received more absentee ballots than it did in 2004.

Statewide, the primary is expected to draw about 35 percent of eligible voters, the highest for a primary since 1988, said Kyle Richmond, spokesman for the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board. About 50 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 1960 primary, the year John Kennedy won the presidency.

A big turnout would reverse a trend in recent primaries, when less than a quarter of eligible voters in the state cast ballots in 1996, 2000 and 2004.

Projections are based on recent history, Super Tuesday results and high interest in the Democratic race, Richmond said.

Also, turnout can be fluid because any voter can use an absentee ballot or register at the polls and vote on the day of the primary, he said, noting that 414,000 people registered at the polls in the general election in 2006.

The state, Richmond said, is confident of avoiding problems of 2006, when touch-screen machines weren 't used properly and computer programming glitches caused troubles in places such as Milwaukee and Waukesha. The equipment worked better in the spring of 2007, he said.

In Madison, voters overwhelmed a polling station on Lien Road on the far East side in the 2006 general election, but that problem shouldn 't reemerge because the city has split three polling places into six in fast-growing peripheral areas, Witzel-Behl said.

The big challenge, she said, is getting more poll workers to handle Downtown precincts, where students who 've worked in the past have moved. Eligible voters who live in the city should contact the clerk 's office to sign up and arrange training, she said.

"There are still a lot of opportunities for people to help out, " Richmond said.