Ohio elections officials preparing for 80% turnout in November

[brooklynite]

Source: Raw Story

DENVER -- As many as 80 percent of Ohio's registered voters could turn out on Election Day, says the state's top election official.

"Looking at the interest in this election, we think it's highly probable," Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said during a panel discussion on election reforms.

Brunner addressed controversy in the state over use of electronic voting machines in the past.

While she was unwilling to force counties to completely abandon DRE machines, she said all voters would have the option to vote on a paper ballot and officials were implementing more stringent security procedures in the 53 counties that still used electronic machines. Brunner said she could not fund the switch from electronic voting in those counties and did not want to implement an unfunded mandate on areas of the already economically struggling state.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Ohio_elections_officials_preparing_for_80_0825.html

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Before we get into another tired argument about whether the Republicans are going to rig the voting machines and steal the election, can we remind ourselves that (1) they didn't do it in 2006; and (2) the democrats now control the Government in Ohio?

[yourout]

1. If 80% of Ohio votes.......the Dems win the White House.

[OhioChick]

2. We have nothing better to do......

We have no jobs here. :shrug:

[brooklynite]

3. I believe John McCain might be looking for some additional "staff"...

[OhioChick]

5. You know what's mind boggling to me?

Both candidates are in a dead heat, according to our local news. How in the hell can ANYONE vote for McCain when Ohio is slowly dying...no jobs, foreclosured homes line the streets, etc. I just can't fathom it all....

[MadMaddie]

4. Damn!! 80% I hope that it is even higher

And this time I don't think the voters will be satisfied with being turned away at the polls.....this time Americans will not put up with the bullshit of the past 8 years.

[bluestateguy]

6. I am confident that Jennifer Brunner will deliver Ohio for us

Payback will be bitch for the antics of Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell.

[pnorman]

15. Here's from Christopher Hitchens, a former "leftist" who by that time was a Bush supporter:

Ohio's Odd Numbers
No conspiracy theorist, and no fan of John Kerry's, the author nevertheless found the Ohio polling results impossible to swallow: Given what happened in that key state on Election Day 2004, both democracy and common sense cry out for a court-ordered inspection of its new voting machines.
by Christopher Hitchens March 2005

by Christopher Hitchens March 2005

If it were not for Kenyon College, I might have missed, or skipped, the whole controversy. The place is a visiting lecturer's dream, or the ideal of a campus-movie director in search of a setting. It is situated in wooded Ohio hills, in the small town of Gambier, about an hour's drive from Columbus. Its literary magazine, The Kenyon Review, was founded by John Crowe Ransom in 1939. Its alumni include Paul Newman, E. L. Doctorow, Jonathan Winters, Robert Lowell, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and President Rutherford B. Hayes. The college's origins are Episcopalian, its students well mannered and well off and predominantly white, but it is by no means Bush-Cheney territory. Arriving to speak there a few days after the presidential election, I found that the place was still buzzing. Here's what happened in Gambier, Ohio, on decision day 2004.

The polls opened at 6:30 a.m. There were only two voting machines (push-button direct-recording electronic systems) for the entire town of 2,200 (with students). The mayor, Kirk Emmert, had called the Board of Elections 10 days earlier, saying that the number of registered voters would require more than that. (He knew, as did many others, that hundreds of students had asked to register in Ohio because it was a critical "swing" state.) The mayor's request was denied. Indeed, instead of there being extra capacity on Election Day, one of the only two machines chose to break down before lunchtime.
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Across the rest of Ohio, the Capra theme was not so noticeable. Reporters and eyewitnesses told of voters who had given up after humiliating or frustrating waits, and who often cited the unwillingness of their employers to accept voting as an excuse for lateness or absence. In some way or another, these bottlenecks had a tendency to occur in working-class and, shall we just say, nonwhite precincts. So did many disputes about "provisional" ballots, the sort that are handed out when a voter can prove his or her identity but not his or her registration at that polling place. These glitches might all be attributable to inefficiency or incompetence (though Gambier had higher turnouts and much shorter lines in 1992 and 1996). Inefficiency and incompetence could also explain the other oddities of the Ohio process—from machines that redirected votes from one column to the other to machines that recorded amazing tallies for unknown fringe candidates, to machines that apparently showed that voters who waited for a long time still somehow failed to register a vote at the top of the ticket for any candidate for the presidency of these United States.
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http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2005/03/hitchens200503


pnorman

[NMDemDist2]

7. even in the urban areas?

we can only hope....

[Phred42]

8. Prepared for 80% in WHICH precints this time?

[PuppyBismark]

9. She is doing the job needed

For example, in Franklin Co, (Columbus, OH) voters will be able to go to Veterans' Memorial Hall to register and vote at the same time. Every voter gets an absentee ballot application. There is hope in Ohio.

[buckrogers1965]

10. They better prepare for 95% turn out.

People are pissed.

[gratuitous]

20. Watch carefully

There was high turnout in 2004, too, and somehow all those people standing in line, all those people waiting for hours on end, all those people enduring the weather and the glitches and the general ineptness by design of the polling places, all those people voted for four more years of George W. Bush.

I mean, that must be the case, mustn't it? After all, Ohio went for Bush in 2004, just like it did in 2000. A very motivated electorate turned out, endured miserable conditions, and voted for the status quo. That's what the teevee told me, and teevee wouldn't lie to me, would it?

[Dr.Phool]

11. Put one machine per precinct in southern Ohio.

See how they like it.

[trthnd4jstc]

12. All Voters Would Have the Option of Voting On a Paper Ballot.

Wonderful, now there is a chance that Diebold will not chose the Ohio Election! Cheers!

[Herman74]

13. WISH THE HELL THEY HAD DONE THIS FOUR YEARS AGO...

...but, of course, they had a Republican Secretary of State back then.

[FatDave]

14. Have we ever approaced 80% anywhere?

Ever in the past 50 years? 80% would be historic, and will ensure an Obama victory.

[eridani]

16. In 2006, our turnout overcame their cheating

We need to make sure it does this time as well.

[Doctor_J]

Preparing by moving all the voting machines to GOP districts

Good luck trying to vote in OH if you're a Dem.

[Courtesy Flush]

17. They can relieve that pressure by purging the rolls

Just kidding.

[Alter Ego]

18. If 80% of Ohio turns out Obama will actually win the state.

And Obama should start a campaign to make sure voters ASK for paper ballots. No electronic fuckery there.

[apnu]

19. This is great, can we get 80% of the national body of voters to turn out?

If so, we win in a land slide. IMO, the only reason the GOP has been a viable entitiy is because of low voter turnout. That allows the wakco's to come out of the woodwork and throw the election.

Its a sad statement that 2004, arguably the most hotly fought over election since 1968, only 60.7% of the electoral turned out to vote. 40% of the possible voters stayed home, that's sad.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

21. Wow. D'ya think they can rig all those precincts in time?

Here's bettin' someone sure as hell gives it a good try... :shrug: