I voted today - Ohio (with pics)

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Wednesday October 29, 2008 · 5:48 PM PDT

2008/10/29 · 17:48

Early voting is underway in Ohio. After a bit of nudging, I convinced my wife that it would be smart to vote early, and so we went after lunch today.

Warren County is midway between Cincinnati and Dayton. It has a fair amount of farmland, but we also have a number of small and medium-sized towns, including upscale bedroom communities for both of the larger cities to our north and south. This area has traditionally gone strong Republican, and judging by the census of lawn signs, this year will be no exception.

The only place for walk-in early voting in the county is in Lebanon, the county seat. So, today, we journeyed to the county board of elections (in the county administration building) to vote.

Walking into the the building, we discovered the lobby was filled with chairs and probably 100 people waiting to vote. The flow of people was constant, so there was as many people waiting when we finished as there was when we started.

(This picture shows only about 1/2 of the available seating. There are this many chairs again to the left.)

The procedure is to go to the table in the corner, obtain an absentee ballot request form, fill it out, turn it back in at the table and wait to be called to vote. About every 5 minutes, the workers would get a call from the voting area (in the actual Board of Elections offices on the third floor), and send up another 5 to 10 people with their forms. We waited about 80-90 minutes before being called. The workers were generally cheerful and efficient. The staff provided bottles of water for everybody.

Once upstairs, we passed our forms to a fellow who verified our voter registration. We then went into another room, which looked like a small office waiting area, passed our forms into another office where the busy workers pulled the appropriate ballot and eventually (in about five minutes) called us in to vote.

This picture shows a couple of early voters, reading some various ballot initiatives before being called into cast their ballots.

Warren County uses a 'fill-in-the-bubble' ballot, kind of like those old-school multiple-choice tests. The ballots are read by optical scanner -- no problems with touch-screen or verified paper trail voting here.

You can see the voting stations here. There were eight stations, and they were busy full-time. (At this point, I've finished voting and am waiting for my wife to come out.)

All folks voting were calm and patient, except for a minor glitch when some new staffer accidently called some people out of order. Things were quickly straightened out, though. The process went very smoothly. I estimate Warren County probably handled over one thousand early voters today, based on the traffic I saw.

No histrionics, no confrontations, no glitches. The way voting ought to be.

(And yes, I voted for Obama.)

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