Ohio Opens Early Voting
By JENNIFER COMPSTON-STROUGH With AP DispatchesWOODSFIELD - Monroe County registered four new voters Tuesday, but apparently none of them were ready to cast their ballots.
Although Tuesday marked the first time voters in the Buckeye State were permitted to register and vote on the same day, Monroe County Board of Elections Chairman Manifred Keylor said none of those who registered in Woodsfield chose to vote at the same time. However, Keylor said 17 who already were registered came to the board office Tuesday to vote.
"I honestly didn't think that many would even vote today," Keylor said late Tuesday. "We've had a little over 1,500 requests for absentees by application, which is good, I think."
Between Monroe and Belmont counties, 40 votes were cast during the initial day of early voting in Ohio for the Nov. 4 general election.
Frankie Lee Carnes, chairwoman of the Belmont County Board of Elections, said 23 people cast early ballots there; however, she was unsure whether any of those voters also registered to vote on Tuesday.
"Some of them had already requested absentee ballots by application, but they wanted to come out and vote anyway," she noted, adding that she is not sure what to expect during the six-day window in which newly registered voters also can cast early ballots. "We were ready for them, and that's what's important."
Election officials in Harrison and Jefferson counties could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.
Ohio has been tagged as the state that may again determine the presidency. Voters across the state started casting ballots Tuesday even as Barack Obama struggles to thwart a John McCain victory in Ohio four years after it tipped the election to President Bush.
At stake: 20 electoral votes - perhaps, the presidency itself.
Both candidates visit the state often while spending millions of dollars flooding TV and radio with advertisements, mailboxes with literature and even voicemail with automated phone calls to get supporters to the polls, particularly during the one-week window in which people can register and vote in one swoop.
Early participation in the state overall appeared light; officials in the state's largest counties that are home to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo and Dayton each reported several hundred ballots cast by afternoon. Many of those who voted cited convenience.
"I wanted to avoid the traffic and the people," said Charlene Glass, 49, of Cleveland Heights. A first-time voter, she backed Obama and expressed her enthusiasm for a black candidate. In Dayton, Terri Bell, 49, chose McCain because of his experience and his military service. "I have a lot on my plate. I wanted to do this early," she said.
Most recent state polls show a dead heat; others give McCain an edge. National surveys show Obama slightly ahead if not more. The disparity underscores the difficulty Obama is having in closing the deal in this pivotal state. He's a first-term senator from Chicago with a liberal voting record and would be the country's first black president.
In all, 270 electoral votes are needed for victory.
Ohio is crucial to McCain's electoral strategy. Bush narrowly won the state, and a loss for McCain here would be very difficult to make up with victories elsewhere given that the political landscape favors Democrats and several other key states are tilting toward Obama.
Obama, however, now leads McCain in enough other states Bush won in 2004 that he could lose Ohio and still reach the 18 electoral votes he would need if he carries all the states Democrat John Kerry did in 2004. Still, winning Ohio itself could do the trick.
Every factor is at play in Ohio. Thus, every question will be tested.
Among them: Can Republican McCain overcome his links to Bush and a weakened state party and prevail in a state that suffered large losses of manufacturing jobs and large numbers of Iraq war deaths? Can Democrat Obama overcome voter concerns about his voting record and race among the many blue-collar workers in this culturally conservative, deeply divided state?
Obama got shellacked in Ohio by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary: She carried 83 of 88 counties as white, working-class voters flocked to her economic populist message. Therefore, Obama is copying Gov. Ted Strickland and Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrats who went into Republican areas and boosted turnout to narrow GOP margins.
"Democrats too often have forgotten about places like this," said former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus, an Obama supporter who recently met with some two dozen rural voters in London in western Ohio. "They have forgotten about small-town America, rural America, agricultural America and taken it for granted that we're going to vote the other way."
Linda Ward, a nurse from western Ohio, has tried to persuade others to take a critical look at McCain but hasn't had much luck. "Not my neighbors, not my friends. This area is a very conservative one," she said.
Voters like Diane Ferguson, a nursing home director in southeast Ohio, typify Obama's troubles. She says she likes Obama but isn't sure she can vote for him. She's troubled by his early resistance to wearing a flag pin, his race and a resume that looks thin to her.
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:30 AM
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ha! great answer, a spew, no answer to the question. see where we are going here? i can show you so many times that a certain few bait people with namecalling and antagonist remarks without answering whatsoever to typical debate questions. again, have you determined who won the debate without telepromters, or would you like me to post some polls? left, right and middle
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tmoore
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10-02-08 10:22 AM
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So when are you going to get educated and stop acting like the Soros/Obama/Ayres lemmings?
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:22 AM
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so are you claiming he didn't win the debate? without teleprompters?
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tmoore
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10-02-08 10:20 AM
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Its not a thin resume,he doesnt have one. Present,160 times. The guy is a goofball. Without his phony teleprompter speeches,he would be a mute.
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:19 AM
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tmoore- i just had to listen to understand where you were all getting your nonsense from, BUT, at least I had enough gumption to listen to both sides. that is how educated informed people get their info
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:18 AM
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Republicans, ACORN feud over suspicious voter cards BY MARC CAPUTO mcaputo@MiamiHerald**** TALLAHASSEE -- Two suspicious Seminole County voter registration cards became a flash point Wednesday in the Republican effort to suggest the community group ACORN is committing fraud in its historic Florida get-out-the vote efforts. An ACORN spokesman said the group spotted what appeared to be forged registration cards weeks ago and fired a worker over them. Seminole's election chief, Mike Ertel, said he was still "tremendously concerned," but stopped well short of calling the incident "fraud." point being, if you look for the truth it can be found. i will admit that th eweb is clogged up on the first page by a group that are on a witch hunt, hey, maybe you could call palin's minister, he is good at witch hunting!
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tmoore
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10-02-08 10:18 AM
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Glad you are a closet Rush fan. hehe
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tmoore
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10-02-08 10:17 AM
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That Acorn is a fine group. Ayers a bigwig with them. Dems tried to sneak a few hundred million to them on last vote,but McCain stopped that nonsense.
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:10 AM
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U.S. Attorney Fired After Failing to Indict ACORN for Voter Fraud There are new developments in the scandal over the Bush administration's firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. One of the dismissed prosecutors has revealed that he was pressured by Republican officials to target the advocacy group ACORN for voter fraud. ACORN was working on a voter registration drive in low-income and largely minority neighborhoods in New Mexico. David Iglesias told Newsweek that he found no case worth bringing against ACORN. But that apparently did not please the White House. Last week Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's ex-chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson testified that during the run-up to the mid-term election White House adviser Karl Rove complained that Iglesias and two other U.S. Attorneys had not done enough to prosecute so-called voter fraud. Here's a tidbit- more to come
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:04 AM
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ellis- the same county in question for voter fraud, when bush won? all the votes that weren't counted? give up the rush spews . they are NOT TRUE!
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:01 AM
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tmoore- point very well proven by your post. just make up stuff. brilliant
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wonderwhy
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10-02-08 10:01 AM
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ellis- the fact that you quote the rush morning show has absolutely no credibility at all when there was possible voter fraud, guess who uncovered it? acorn , themselves, traced it down to 5 people. they were fired and charged. then acorn sifted thru all the records to assure they were accurate a month or so ago it was the huessin thing, now it's the acorn thing, it's alwasy something that is exagerated adn spewed. get your facts straight! and go drink some of that koolaid you are always talking about
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tmoore
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10-02-08 8:08 AM
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On TV showed an Obama bus and were giving out pints to the homeless to go vote.
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EllisWyatt
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10-02-08 6:36 AM
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I repeat: there has been massive voter fraud in swing states on the part of ACORN, the same organization with which Barack Obama has had close ties for years, the same ACORN that has an $800,000 contract with the Obama campaign-THAT OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN TRIED TO COVER UP AND WERE BUSTED. This is not a conspiracy theory: these people have been caught left and right committing fraud. How does Cuyahoga County, OH (home of Cleveland and heavily Democratic) have 200,000 more registered voters than it has adults? Could this have something to do with the 75,000 "new" Democrats registered by ACORN in Cuyahoga County? If Republicans were running this scam, it would be front page news. But the MSM will do anything to have their idol elected-including refusing to cover blatant fraud from an organization employed by Obama, and attempting to steal the election. I will not let this one go. Those 75,000 fraud voters can decide the national election.
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TruthinPolitics
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10-02-08 12:14 AM
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Ohio is one of the hardest hit states for job losses under Bush. 648,000 jobs in 7 years. McCain wants to expand free trade. Those are your jobs Ohio. No one in Ohio should vote Republican. 1 in 10 Ohioans is now on food stamps. $400 a month for a family of 3. That's $1 per person per meal. It's amazing they would vote for more of that.
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Blackrock
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10-01-08 8:25 PM
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Registration with same day voting is agaonst the law. but if you have Democratic judges, the law does not matter. This smells to high heaven of voter fraud.
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EllisWyatt
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10-01-08 6:11 PM
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"There appears to be a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications," said Kelly Chesney, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State's Office. "And it appears to be widespread." In Ohio, ACORN supposedly registered 75,000 new voters in Cuyahoga County, which has seen rapid population loss. Obama's campaign had to amend its' campaign finance reports to show that it had an $800,000 contract with ACORN. In Nov. 2006, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that “Cuyahoga County has 1.05 million registered voters, which tops the number of adults in the county by 200,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.” Also in November 2006, a Cleveland TV station reported several specific instances where “votes ….. (were) cast by citizens who are dead.” ACORN fraud in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Missouri? Obama paying ACORN $800,000? Is it any coincidence that the ACORN voter fraud is occuring in important swing states? RICO time.
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EllisWyatt
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10-01-08 6:04 PM
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ACORN already started the early voting by making up names and registering them in Ohio (all to support Democrats, of course). Obama has a close assocation with ACORN dating back to his Chicago ward days. This bailout bill had a clause, inserted by the Democrats, to give ACORN $500 million. SCAM! Here's the ACORN scam on behalf of Democrats: Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families. The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs. ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees."
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Destroyallmonsters
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10-01-08 2:57 PM
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"She's troubled by his early resistance to wearing a flag pin, his race and a resume that looks thin to her." I love how some people love to flaunt their ignorance. Anybody that thinks a "lapel pin" is a real campaign issue is just stupid. There are no excuses for this sort of stupidity.
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