PROVIDENCE — For the first time ever, Rhode Island’s voter registration rolls have topped 85 percent of all adults, signaling what could be a record turnout in the presidential election just two weeks from today.

More than 42,000 Rhode Islanders have signed up to vote since the March presidential primary, with a hefty 700,000 people in this state now registered, according to new data from the state.

“People are more focused on this election than any one that I can remember,” Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis said. “We held voter registration drives on college campuses, on factory floors and as new Americans were sworn in as citizens. The overwhelming response we have had tells me voters are really tuned in this year.”

Voter registrations increased in every community. The greatest jump was on the Democratic side, where voting rosters grew by more than 11 percent. By contrast, Republican rolls increased by less than 0.5 percent.

But the real surprise came in the independent column, which makes up the largest number of voters statewide. Since March, the number of unaffiliated voters dropped by 8 percent, or about 28,000.

University of Rhode Island political science Prof. Maureen Moakley attributed that dip to the presidential primary, when thousands of voters affiliate with a particular party, as required by law to cast primary ballots. Many of those voters may not have disaffiliated after voting, Moakley suggested.

“There was a lot of heavy organization in Rhode Island before the primary, especially the Democratic primary, and that would also explain why [so many] registered as Democrats,” she said. “This presidential race has generated an enormous amount of interest and spiked people’s partisan inclinations.”

The secretary of state’s office does not track voter registration by age, though Moakley and others predict the Democratic surge could also be the result of more young people, ages 18 to 24, registering to vote for the first time. Statistics have long shown that young voters tend to lean Democratic.

Overall, however, Rhode Island’s registration totals increased by just 2 percent, a substantially smaller swell than in certain battleground states such as Nevada and Virginia, where double-digit jumps were the norm, according to a report yesterday by Congressional Quarterly.

Overall, 13 battleground states have received 3.4 million new registrations as of last week, compared with 1.8 million new registrations before the 2004 election, according to the CQ report.

“In some states, that increase is just keeping pace with population growth,” Mollis spokesman Christopher Barnett said. Rhode Island’s population by comparison has shrunk slightly in recent years.

The secretary of state’s calculation that there are 42,000 eligible new voters in the Ocean State takes into account people who may have died or moved out of state in addition to those who registered by the 30-day advance deadline earlier this month, according to Barnett.

As many 10,000 additional Rhode Islanders may be able vote for president on Election Day under a provision in state law that gives some people who missed the registration deadline the right to cast a vote only for the nation’s top office, Barnett said. In the 2004 election, thousands of people in that category cast ballots.

But whether record registrations translate to record turnout is hard to forecast.

Last month, Mollis predicted the Nov. 4 turnout would top all records at 70 percent, a number so high that some feared it could lead to problems. The September primary day was rife with glitches ranging from ballots locked in a school to polling places that were never counted.

Christine Lopes, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause, said the September missteps “raise concerns about whether things will run smoothly in November.”

The organization says the closure of more than 80 polling stations across the state since the last presidential election could lead to further problems, as voters head to the wrong locations. Mollis and Robert Kando, executive director of the state Board of Elections, say they are prepared, no matter how many records are set two weeks from now.

To visit the secretary of state’s voter information center go to www.sec.state.ri.us/vic/.

cneedham@projo.com