DURHAM – Because the New Hampshire Primary will be held while most college students are on winter break, on-campus participation is expected to be low this year, but clerks in several college towns said yesterday absentee voting is up.

Town and city clerks in Durham and Keene said the number of students registering to vote using their college addresses is down.

In 2000, as many as 1,100 students registered to vote at the polls in Durham, Town Clerk Lorrie Pitt said yesterday. With 7,000 registered voters on average, that influx of new voters could sway the way the town votes, Pitt said.

"We're kind of not sure what's going to happen, but we're assuming we're not going to have the overabundance we normally have on election day,'' Pitt said. "There still could be a number who live in town and don't go home for break.''

College students are allowed to vote where they attend school if they can prove residence. Pitt said it's not unusual to see students using dorm addresses or other campus housing to register. As long as they can prove they are residing there, Pitts said, they are allowed to vote.

The spike this year, Pitt said, is the 719 absentee ballots that were requested, at least 500 of which she estimated were from students. So far, 500 ballots have been returned to the clerk's office, but it's not known how many came from students.

Several campaigns, including the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton organizations, bused students to the clerk's office to register and pick up absentee ballots, she said. Nearly all the students registered as Democrats.

Pitt said her office went through several shipments of Democratic absentee ballots from the state, and hardly any of the 150 Republican absentee ballots were touched. In Durham as a whole, including student voters, Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than a 2-to-1 ratio, but even more voters -- about 3,400. -- are undeclared.

In Keene, City Clerk Patricia Little said about 100 students registered to vote during two on-campus voter registration drives at Keene State College, held by the clerk's office before they left for winter break. Because of an aggressive push by "the Obama transport system,'' 100 more signed up.

"Ninety-nine percent are voting Democratic,'' Little said.

Little estimated Keene sent out 200 absentee ballots, just a fraction of votes in a city with 16,000 registered voters.

Little said the college students don't necessarily have a noticeable effect on the citywide results, but their votes tend to swamp the ward the college is in.

Dartmouth College will return to session on Monday, meaning many of its students could be going to the polls in Hanover. Hanover Town Clerk Elizabeth Meade said her office is bracing for an onslaught of student voters.

So far, she said, the town's voter list is at about 8,000 -- 1,000 more than in the last election, said Meade, who attributed most of the increase to students. Again, most of the new registrants are signing up as Democrats or are predicted to ask for a Democratic ballot.

Even without students, Democrats dominate Hanover's voter checklist, Meade said, noting her office plans to have 5,000 Democratic ballots available at the polls.

Dante Scala, University of New Hampshire political scientist, said it's unclear how much difference having students off or on campus really makes. With the University of New Hampshire and Keene State College, many of the students may reside in other New Hampshire towns when not at school, Scala said. There is no information on how many student voters are from other states.

Students may help make Durham, Keene and Hanover a darker hue of blue, but Scala said the size of the New Hampshire electorate could negate any influence on the results.

"We're going to have a half a million people vote next Tuesday,'' he said. "So you take the vote of Durham and the vote of Hanover, and we're still talking about a very small fraction of the overall total.''