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Requests for early ballots in Pima County this election season have increased more than twofold — a phenomenon that has already altered how candidates are campaigning and is likely to make the final days leading up to Election Day less significant than in years past.

This is the first election in which voters can sign up to be on a permanent early voting list, one on which nearly 130,000 voters have put their names.

So far, the Pima County Recorder's Office has sent out 105,000 early ballots for the Sept. 2 primary election — more than twice the total number who voted early in 2006, and weeks still remain for voters to request the ballots.

And with early voting beginning today, not only is the high number of early ballots influencing campaign techniques, it's also foreshadowing for election officials what November — with a presidential race — might bring.

The big question is how many of those voters who are receiving early ballots will actually mark them and send them back. Primary elections, particularly with the biggest contested races being local legislative and county contests, are typically low-turnout elections.

But for the general election, officials see the permanent early ballot list as potentially changing the way business is done. For that election, early voting will start Oct. 2. So to be effective, campaigns for presidential and congressional candidates will need to begin targeting voters in September.

"One of the things we're imagining will happen is, in theory, it will make our polling places more manageable," said Brad Nelson, director of Pima County elections.

Or maybe not.

Following long lines and widespread voter confusion due to high-voter turnout in the Feb. 5 presidential primary election, county officials are bracing for a surge at polling places this November either way.

The county has already started training poll workers, who need to go through six hours of classes and take a competency test.

"They are going to be better prepared," Nelson said.

There will also be more of them: Eight instead of the typical six per polling place in the general election.

Even before the permanent voter list, early voting had been increasing steadily.

In 2000, 34 percent of Pima County voters voted early. By 2004, 47 percent were voting early. Then in the last major election — 2006 — the percentage of county voters voting early hit 54 percent.

This year observers are expecting the number to rise substantially.

Gov. Janet Napolitano said early voting has made it "easy as punch" to vote.

"The key thing is getting people to vote," said Napolitano, predicting record turnout this year.

But she also said it increases pressure on candidates. And candidates themselves say the phenomenon has changed campaigning in Arizona for good.

Activity now starts early. It's more intense — and scientific.

Smart candidates know exactly which voters to target with mail and home visits by looking at voting data from previous elections.

In primaries, including the one that starts today, the audience can be particularly classified in some districts, and candidates can easily target a reliable block of several thousand voters.

"You have to be smarter and more organized," says state Rep. Jonathan Paton, a Tucson Republican running for the state Senate against Democrat Georgette Valle in the general election.

"It exacerbates the need to have large amounts of money earlier."

The view is bipartisan.

State Rep. Phil Lopes, a Tucson Democrat and House minority leader, said early voting — particularly the new permanent voter list — have made it important for candidates to file for Clean Elections funds early and to target voters soon.

"What I'm doing right now, I am walking, my volunteers are walking," Lopes said last week.

Lopes is involved in a three-way Democratic primary for two House seats with fellow incumbent Olivia Cajero Bedford and former state Rep. John Kromko.

Unlike other candidates who see Election Day as less important than it has historically been, Lopes stressed that "an election isn't decided until the votes are counted."

The strategy changes nonetheless.

Democratic legislative candidate Matt Heinz, involved in a primary race against six fellow Democrats in South Side District 29, has spent the past several weeks walking neighborhoods and establishing himself with voters.

After today, Heinz — who ran unsuccessfully for the Legislature in 2006 — said walking neighborhoods isn't very effective.

"A lot of times it's, 'Oh, yeah, I've already voted,' " Heinz said. Instead the campaign becomes "chasing the ballots through phone calls," he said.