CINCINNATI, Ohio -- Phone banks, honk-and-wave events and going door-to-door were all part of the Monday night effort to get out the vote in Southwestern Ohio for Tuesday’s General Election.
Many people see the election as the first test of the "Obama Bounce" – the huge 2008 voter turnout that elevated Democrat Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency.
"Some of that bounce among some of those new voters who do turn out this time will still be there," said Hamilton County Democratic Party chairman Tim Burke.
Predictably, Alex Triantafilou, chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party, took a different stance.
"We think that our voters are understanding that there’s been change in America that’s not positive," he said. "So, I feel good about Republican turnout in this election."
Others see it as the prelude to the 2010 election when Ohioans will elect a governor, choose a new U.S. Senator and House Representatives to Congress and members of the Apportionment Board.
Those are the men and women who will take the 2010 Census information and draw the boundaries of political districts that will be used for the next 10 years.
"I think voters are anxious to vote in a federal election right now," Triantafilou stated. "They don’t like what they’re seeing in Washington and you’ll see a real turnout a year from now."
Burke said candidates who benefited from the "Obama Bounce" in 2008 will have to do more on their own in 2010.
"You get less bounce in a governor’s year than in a presidential year," Burke said. "That’s the war for all the marbles in the State of Ohio."
Even though the 2009 vote lacks the glamour of the presidential race, the ballot contains a number of important contests.
- Cincinnati voters will choose a Mayor and nine members of the City Council. They’ll also consider issues giving citizens the power to decide the future of rail transportation in the city and the Cincinnati Water Works.
- Statewide, Ohio voters will decide whether to allow four casinos to be built in the state and issues of veterans bonuses, livestock care standards.
- Hamilton County voters have tax levy issues regarding family health and hospitalization services, Museum Center maintenance, public library funding and programs for the mentally retarded and developmentally disabled
- School issues include Little Miami’s District trying to avoid a state takeover plus votes in Cincinnati Public Schools and districts in Mt. Healthy, Reading, Winton Woods, Batavia, Bethel-Tate, Monroe, East Clinton and the Warren County Career Center.
When the 2009 campaign began, Burke thought the race for Cincinnati City Council was going to be fairly easy. Then, the city’s budget woes surfaced in June.
"That’s thrown a whole new dynamic into the race, which has given the incumbents more difficult," Burke added. "It’s created more division on council."
Triantafilou says that is playing right into the strategy of GOP candidates.
"I think the theme has been to get away from what you’ve seen down there already, which is gridlock and fighting and a focus on protecting public safety," he said.
There’s plenty of interest in the 2009 election.
Amy Searcy, Deputy Director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, says 60,000 early voting applications were received and more than 47,000 of them returned by Monday afternoon.
"Many people in Hamilton County have discovered it’s a lot easier to vote early," Searcy added.
She predicted a turnout of between 35% and 37% of the 599,000 registered voters.
Vote results were delayed until the early morning hours in 2008 when the main computer went down.
An extra computer, kept off-site for security reasons, had to be retrieved and hooked up for the count to continue. Cincinnati mayor and city council, Ohio casino vote and school tax issues on among items on ballot
Board of Elections Director Sally Krisel says that’s been addressed.
"This year we purchased another one so that we could have one on-site and one off-site," she stated. "If something happens we can get back up and running a lot quicker than we did last November."
