Turnout a bit light in Ohio early voting window
Associated Press
COLUMBUS — A weeklong period in which Ohioans could register to vote and immediately cast a ballot ended Monday with a turnout that didn’t quite match the expectations of election officials — or the partisan rhetoric that preceded it.
Projections were that 4,000 to 5,000 total voters in Ohio’s four largest counties took advantage of the disputed policy, a surprisingly low turnout to some elections officials.
The window was expected to benefit Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama, as his campaign and advocacy groups drove Democratic-leaning demographics such as the homeless, college students and low-income voters to the polls.
In Franklin County, which includes Columbus, 1,776 voters took advantage of the policy. In Montgomery County, home to Dayton, 446 people registered and voted. And in Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located, 675 voters took advantage of the window.
As of Monday evening, about 1,300 people had taken advantage in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and is the state’s most populous county.
“With all the hoopla we were anticipating a whole lot more,” said Montgomery County Board of Elections Director Steve Harsman.
Early voting remains an option for those who registered by Monday’s deadline.
Overall, between 20,000 and 25,000 people were expected to have voted early in person in the four counties from Sept. 30 through Monday — about 20 percent of whom registered and cast ballots on the same day.
The figures do not include the rest of Ohio’s 84 counties, but the four counties account for the largest urban areas and the focal points of campaign turnout efforts.
The true impact of the window on the presidential election will most likely never be fully known since it will be impossible to know how many of the voters who used it would not have voted if the window didn’t exist.
“We’re pleased that thousands of Ohioans are turning out to cast their ballots early for Barack Obama,” said Obama spokesman Isaac Baker.
Despite the uproar from the state GOP about the weeklong voting window, the campaign of Obama’s Republican rival John McCain said the light numbers showed a weakness in Obama’s get-out-the-vote efforts. Republicans pointed to talk from Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern that Democrats were targeting half a million college students to take advantage of the window.
“Despite months of talking up ‘Golden Week,’ Obama was unable to connect with Ohio voters who question his readiness to lead,” said McCain spokesman Paul Lindsay.
The Ohio GOP sued in federal court to stop the voting window, but was unsuccessful. Two Ohio voters with Republican backing sued over the policy in the Ohio Supreme Court, but were also defeated.
Republicans argued that Ohio law required voters to have been registered for at least 30 days before they could be given an absentee ballot. They said the window could lead to widespread voting fraud because officials wouldn’t have an opportunity to verify registration information before ballots were cast.
“We’re simply not seeing that at this stage,” Harsman said.
The Obama campaign said taking advantage of the voting window was just one part of a greater strategy to register new voters and get them to the polls to vote early until Election Day on Nov. 4. The same-day registration and voting window only received so much attention because of GOP lawsuits, Isaac said.
The Ohio GOP has accused Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, of using Ohio law for partisan purposes. But the overlap between the beginning of absentee voting 35 days before Election Day and the end of registration 30 days before the election has been in Ohio law since 1981.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s one voter or 10,000 voters, this office is pleased that state and federal courts have upheld these long-standing Ohio laws,” said Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder.
It’s potential to have an impact on an election only came about after 2005, when the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law that expanded absentee voting to all Ohio voters.
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Filed by Associated Press October 7th, 2008 in Local and State. Popularity: 1% |
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