By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:17 pm March 4th, 2008 in 'Roots News, Blogging, Elections, Foreign Affairs, John McCain, Ohio, Politics, Primary, WH2008 | 9 Comments 

I’m so glad they have people who do this so I don’t have to:

ONN will once again feature its powerful, real-time, county-by-county results tool Vote Tracker on Election Night starting at 7:30 pm.  You will be able to find it on ONN’s site at Ohioschannel.com on Tuesday March 4th.

It will allow web users to track Ohio results on line  (including county-by-county breakdowns) in real time as they are fed to the ONN newsroom.  This tool will be available for Presidential Primary Contests

See all 88 Ohio counties in shades of blue or red (Democratic Primary or Republican Primary) to easily track votes and visually see highly contested races by county–as the results come in
Click on the counties for details on current vote totals and percentages per county
Continue to monitor statewide results while you track county breakdowns
You can also monitor three races at once on one easy screen–and you pick the races!   You can monitor statewide results for both Presidential Primary races or choose to watch three key counties in either race or any combination.  It’s your choice.  This is not a projection tool–it will track the real results as they are fed in (real time).

ONN debuted this in 2006 for the gubernatorial race and more than 1 million hits in a matter or hours made it an instant viewer hit.  Now, make sure to check it out this year for the Presidential Primary. Viewers and political watchers alike asked us for this level of election night vote tracking tool for Ohio.  We believe this is a very powerful way to watch, track and understand the vote on a key election night in Ohio.

By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:48 pm March 4th, 2008 in Announcements, Blogging, Elections, Ohio, Politics, Primary, Tools, WH2008 | Comments Off 

From Blue Bexley, who is located in a Columbus, Ohio suburb (thank you so much for blogging again):

I held Charlotte [his child] while my wife went up to the table. They found her name, checked her ID, took her to the machine, and she commenced voting. While I waited, a mother and son came up to the table, (This is not the important part, but it’s necessary for my conclusion) and the son indicated that he was 17 and planning to vote. The two pollworkers at the table conferred for a moment, with one asking whether he could vote for both affiliation and issues. They decided that they remembered that a 17 year old could not vote for both, so they were going to give him an issues-only ballot. I butted in at that point, saying that a 17 year old can only vote affiliation, there’s a special ballot. They looked up at me, and conferred again more quietly. Soon, a young female pollworker came over and discussed it with them, explaining that a 17-year old cannot vote on issues, and explaining how to get him his ballot.

At this point I wasn’t thrilled, but at least the pollworkers seemed to know what they didn’t really know, and the 17-year old vote is a bit quirky and particular to primaries. And, of course, a person who was obviously freshly trained and in command of the procedures was on the ball and made sure things worked correctly.

Then my wife finished, and I got to go up to the table. I gave my name and they asked for my ID. I gave it to them, and the woman with the book frowned and asked if I had something with my Bexley address. I replied that I didn’t need anything with my valid Bexley address, as they had the correct address in the book, and I had a valid Ohio Driver’s License. She insisted that the addresses needed to match. I asked the woman next to her – “You know that the address on a valid Ohio License doesn’t need to match the address in the pollbook, right?” She told me that I was wrong, they had to match.

Go read the rest, even if you don’t think you want and especially because you don’t think you want to.

By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:01 pm March 4th, 2008 in 'Roots News, Blogging, Elections, Ohio, Politics, Primary, Voting | Comments Off 

I urge you to watch the entire video of this Ohio voter who had just exited the polls.

Disclosures that really don't matter but might interest you:

I know this woman from my town here in Ohio - she lives a couple of blocks away. Her husband is on the school board and they have a couple of kids though I forget their ages. When she first saw me in the polling place, she walked right over to me (in front of the polling place head honcho no less, whom I'd shown my credential in order to let me shoot some other video I'll post later about my experience and what the ballot looks like) to say, You were amazing! on CNN last week. And she went on and on - and...oh, well - this post isn't about me, now, is it?

As she was exiting, knowing how absolutely crappy it is outside - and I do mean crappy - I didn't want ot stand outside waiting to try and get someone to talk to me. So as we stood inside just before going outside, I asked her if she'd let me interview her outside the "flag range" so that there would be no issues of propriety. And she said sure.

Other than that, nothing was planned and I haven't seen her in a few weeks except maybe in the grocery store.

By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:34 pm March 4th, 2008 in 'Roots News, Barack Obama, Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Ohio, Politics, Predictions, Primary, WH2008 | 13 Comments 

Jeff at Ohio Daily Blog has great posts that follow the action but many Ohio blogs are using open threads to encourage people to leave their stories.

I videoed my experience and will post that after I finish polishing up an exit interview I did.

I haven’t read too many posts because I’ve been out since 7:45am and back home just working on catching up. If you go to Lefty Blogs and click on Ohio, you’ll find posts and likewise, BlogNetNews Ohio will have Ohio blog posts.

By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:58 am March 4th, 2008 in 'Roots News, Announcements, Elections, Ohio, Politics, Primary, WH2008 | Comments Off