Early Voting a Good Experience

My wife, son, and I cast our votes for the November 7 elections today.

This year, we voters in Ohio are able to vote early. In the past, only absentee voters who could vouch for their inability to make it to the polls on election day were able to do this. But now, registered voters have the option of mailing in their ballots or showing up at the county Board of Elections offices in any of the state's 88 county seats before election day.

According to this article by Cincinnati Enquirer political reporter, Howard Wilkinson, both Democrats and Republicans like early voting, feeling that it locks voters in on their choices before any last-minute gaffes or charges can change their minds.

For us, the chance to vote early was an attractive option. It let us avoid the gauntlet of bothersome, barking campaigners who routinely station themselves in the parking lot--the barking lot?--of the megachurch where we vote. Because we live in the largest township in our county and something like five different precincts cast their votes there, it's an inviting target for what we consider to be harassing activists.

Clermont County, where we live, is suburban-rural and sets just east of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. The total population of Clermont is about 175,000. At the Board of Elections offices in Batavia, the staff told us that the voters who took advantage of early voting had been great to work with. I imagine that's because people who drive from the far corners of the county rather than going to their neighborhood polling places, are highly motivated. We voted at about 4:00 this afternoon and the staffers estimated that about 100 people had come in to vote just today. I have no idea how many people have already voted by mail, but will be interested in learning that come election day.

There was no gauntlet at the Board offices, though I wonder if some campaigns won't begin to station folks there--beyond the state-proscribed 100-foot limit--in the next few days, when larger numbers of folks are apt to vote at that site.

[This was cross-posted at RedBlueChristian.com.]