Maine experienced another surge in voter registrations this month, and more than 73,000 people have already requested absentee ballots with six weeks to go before the November election, the secretary of state’s office reported Tuesday.

More than 5,400 people registered to vote online in two consecutive weeks this month. That’s a significant jump from previous weeks. Online voter registrations had been hovering around 1,000 to 1,500 per week since late July, when the pace of registrations increased following Vice President Kamala Harris taking over the Democratic ticket for president.

Meanwhile, a total of 73,169 voters have requested absentee ballots so far this election cycle. The requests are on pace to exceed the number of absentee ballots cast in the 2022 gubernatorial election.

The recent surge in registrations coincided with the Sept. 10 debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump and pop star Taylor Swift’s subsequent endorsement of Harris, which reportedly prompted hundreds of thousands of people around the country to go to online voter registration resources.

It also coincided with National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 17. The secretary of state’s office said 2,455 Mainers used online voter registration on that day alone.

The new online registration data reported Tuesday include some voters who updated registrations with a change of name, address or party enrollment, and others who submitted applications but were already registered, perhaps because they weren’t sure or had not voted for some time.

Total new registrations, including those done on voter registration cards at municipal offices or paper voter registration applications from the secretary of state, were not available for recent weeks, the secretary of state’s office said Tuesday. The office reported earlier this month that it had received 22,860 new registrations through August of this year.

The secretary of state hasn’t had online voter registration in previous years, so there isn’t past data on online registrations to compare to this year.

But from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, 2016, the state saw 19,892 new registrations overall, and from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, 2020, there were 31,818, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Maine has about 955,285 active registered voters, of which 36% are Democrats, 30% are Republicans, 29% are unenrolled and the remainder are registered with third parties. The department doesn’t track new voter registrations by party or by demographics, such as age, race or gender, so it’s not possible to say who exactly is registering.

At least some are people who recently moved to Maine, while others have said the stakes in this year’s presidential election are motivating them to get involved.

Voters have been able to request absentee ballots since mid-August, though cities and towns are not required to make them available until Oct. 7. An exception exists for uniformed and overseas voters, who began receiving ballots on Sept. 19 since federal law requires those ballots to be sent at least 45 days before the election.

Of the 73,169 ballots requested so far, 4,503 have been issued and 48 returned.

The number of requests so far is far less than it was for the last presidential election in 2020, though that was an unusual year because people were voting absentee in record numbers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

About 243,800 absentee ballot requests had been filed by this point in 2020 – the Tuesday six weeks before Election Day. That represented about 46% of the absentee ballots requested for the election.

For the last gubernatorial election in 2022, a total of 40,500 absentee ballot requests had been made by this point in time, representing about 16% of absentee ballots requested for that election.

In addition to the presidential election, voters in Maine this year will be weighing in on five referendums, including three bond questions, races for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, state legislative races, and local referendums.