AMERICANS living in Ireland are entitled to vote in the November election through the absentee ballot system and those who want to do so should act now, according to the US Embassy in Dublin.
The US Ambassador, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, "is very interested in registering Americans to vote - on a completely non-partisan basis - and has made that a priority", said Mr Jonathan Beighle, chief of the American Citizens Services Section at the embassy.
"Interest is high. We're registering people every day," he said. "We're getting 20 to 30 calls a day asking for voter registration cards."
Mrs Kennedy Smith has addressed voter registration seminars in Galway and Cork. The drive to register voters will intensify next month, Mr Beighle said.
An estimated 40,000 US citizens live in the Republic, about 1 per cent of the population, according to the embassy. The figure includes people of Irish birth who have obtained the "green card", elderly Americans living on social security, people horn in the US who have resettled here and those working for multinational companies.
In Northern Ireland, there is "an increase in interest to vote this year", according to Mr Robin Greer, of the US Consulate General in Belfast. "It appears to be coming from American citizens in transit, who are working here for two or three months, or who have moved here recently," he said.
There are an estimated 2,000 US citizens in Northern Ireland, he said, based on "anecdotal evidence." About 300 of them are US-born.
A straw poll of Americans in Ireland by The Irish Times found they are usually Democrats or independents with left-wing leanings, and apathetic about voting. Some are not aware of their right to vote through the post.
"I wasn't sure," said Ms Ellen Dunleavy (42), a Democrat from Chicago "where the dead can vote and do so often," as she puts it. Ms Dunleavy, who won the 1995 RTE/Film Base award for best short script for Prisoners, intends to vote for Mr Clinton out of a "deep-seated fear of Republicans."
Mr Jim Bird, a Vietnam veteran from Minnesota who lives in Dublin, and an independent who usually votes for the Democrats, does not vote by absentee ballot any more. "I don't feel I have good enough knowledge to vote," he said.
Mr Bird, who is part Apache Indian, described the Republican convention in San Diego as "an absolute cartoon. Jack Kemp is one of those good ol' boys and he is so pragmatic it's unbelievable," he said.
Ms Marybeth Shiell (45), from Arlington, Massachusetts, a physiotherapist in Dalkey, Co Dublin, usually intends to vote but then doesn't get around to it.
"I don't like Dole. I just never have," she said. She finds the Republicans "a little too self-righteous, a little too hard on the people who usually need the help, and a little too big business". She's not wild about Mr Clinton, either. "Lack of good choice makes me apathetic," she said.
Mr Bill Johnson, a Democrat from Kansas and a retired PR man for Hallmark greeting cards, who lives in Galway, is voting for Mr Clinton, "because Mr Dole is from Kansas and we know him too well".
Efforts to contact the head of the US Republican Party in Ireland, Mr William J. Prasifka, were unsuccessful. When asked some years ago how many Republicans lived in Ireland, Mr Prasifka replied good-naturedly: "I've been looking for them under rocks."