Ho, Boy, it's gonna be CRAZY in Ohio

[eileen from OH]

next week. Don't know if you've noticed or not but Ohio does NOT have early voting. That plus the massive regisration, the predicted challenges, etc., could make for one wild and woolly day/night. I'm taking a 4:00 to 7:30pm monitoring shift. Pray for me.

In the good news department (which I couldn't find in any mainstream press yet) remember the 35,000+ challenges that the Repubs filed last week? Seems that thousands of 'em have been withdrawn as it turned out to be some kind of computer glitch that caused the return of cards telling where to vote. Which is what the challenges were based on. Couldn't find a hard number, but looks like at least a fourth of 'em are now okay. So far they're sticking with the 17,000+ challenges in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) though.

I should be able to drop in with a turnout report early on as my husband is always one of the first to vote in our precinct. I go later in the day, though since I'm also doing a chauffeur to the polls shift, I'll go early this year. We have never had to wait AT ALL to get in there. If there's a line in my li'l precinct, we'll know it's gonna be big.

eileen from OH

[Pirate Smile]

1. Oh, sh@t. Is there a big absentee ballot program going or anything?

There are 3-4 hour long lines in places like Florida with early voting now.

They should probably double the number of voting places they have but I'm sure Blackwell won't because they like it when fewer people vote.

[faithnotgreed]

2. oh wow. its gonna be CRAZY good! prayers as you asked for are sent

for you and for ohio and our whole country! and kerry of course

[snowbear]

3. We'll all be sending you...

...lots and lots of DU Hugs! :grouphug:

[gmoney]

4. I made calls to new registered voters tonight

and virtually NOBODY had received information on where they were supposed to vote. I was able to look up polling places for some of the folks.

The names on my list were about 50-50 split (and about 80% no answer) but the Kerry folks were a LOT more enthusiastic. Maybe it's too much to expect Bush people to be enthusiastic to get a call from the Kerry campaign, but they didn't sound too convinced that Bush was such a great idea. :)

[autorank]

5. Thanks. You're doing extremely important work.

What happens when the polls close and there's a line? Do they allow those in line to vote?

[madmom]

6. If you are in line already yes ,you can vote.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

7. Hi Eileen! I can't wait to get there!

I talked to ACT in Dayton today, they are so organized and so cool (as in calm and organized).

I will probably not be able to sleep on the 1st, so I'll be up early and off to Dayton to do door hangings, and later they will put me to work driving voters and making sure people know where to vote.

If the turnout is as big as we expect, get ready for a very long night. Indeed they have to let everyone vote who's still in line when the polls close, and those could be some LONG lines.

I can't wait...