It's worth remembering that the wide margin for George Bush in red southwestern Ohio is what allowed him to carry Ohio, and ultimately the nation. With that in mind, the biggest news from Ohio's primary may be the astonishing turnout and the fact that in traditional Republican strongholds, registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans.
That's significant, because we aren't simply talking about crossover voting. In Ohio, you have to be somewhat serious about crossover voting. If it's proven that voters aren't doing it legitimately, they could be subject to prosecution.
Barack Obama's attempts to upset Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary on Tuesday rely - at least partly - on an Ohio law that allows independents and Republicans to vote a Democratic ballot.
But voters beware: Ohio's system is not a true "open" primary. And the law discourages voters from whimsically switching parties each election to vote in a more exciting race - or to create mischief.
Ohio law allows independents - or those who haven't voted in a partisan primary since 2005 - to cast a ballot in either party's primary. Any voter also can cast an issues-only ballot.
But a registered Republican who wants to vote a Democratic ballot must swear - under threat of criminal prosecution - that he "desires to be affiliated with" and "supports the principles" of the Democratic party. The same goes for registered Democrats who want to vote Republican ballots.
Prosecutors and election lawyers say indictments of fraudulent crossover voters are extremely unlikely, and perhaps unfathomable - absent some organized effort by one party to tamper with the other party's result.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the crossover isn't an attempt to game the system, but a disgust with GOP politics that the party ignores at its peril.
Take Lincoln Ware, a talk show host on the African-American-oriented radio station WDBZ. He cast an early vote with great fanfare on his radio show Tuesday.
Though a longtime registered Republican, he crossed over to vote for Obama in the Democratic primary. As a matter of law, Ware is now a Democrat.
"I'm not declaring that I am a Democrat," he said later. "I consider myself a Republican locally. The only reason I switched over is I wanted to vote for a national Democrat. I'm disgusted with the national Republican party."
That was enough to satisfy Hamilton County Elections Director John M. Williams, a guest on the show (and a registered Republican). He accepted the ballot.
Hamilton County Democratic Chairman Timothy M. Burke, who also chairs the Board of Elections, said he would happily welcome independents - and even Republicans like Ware - into the fold.
"If they believe that - in this year's election - the Democratic candidates offer the best choices, the law permits them to (cross over)," he said.
It's not just Hamilton County, either. Across Ohio, Democratic voter turnout was almost twice that of Republicans, a fact that should give the eventual nominee a leg up in November.
Results showed that the Democratic contest dominated the night in Ohio, with many unaffiliated and Republican voters choosing to vote on the Democratic side in this perennial swing state that has made a habit of picking presidents. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Democratic candidates received more than twice the number of votes than Republicans, 2.23 million votes for Democrats to 1.02 million for Republicans.
There's even bad news for John Boehner. In solidly red Butler County, which went for Bush by a 66-34 margin in 2004, Democratic ballots outnumbered Republicans by 48,991 to 39,747. Previously, there were 45,711 Republicans compared to 21,640 Democrats. No one should be naive enough to think that the Democrats will carry Butler County--but they can easily cut into the margin there and in the rest of Ohio that helped George Bush carry Ohio in 2004. That news alone shows what an uphill battle McCain has in Ohio, and exactly how hard he will have to campaign. With his recent dust up with Cinninnatian Bill Cunningham, he's not off to a good start in winning the conservative base here.
In Hamilton County, Democratic registrations now outnumber Republicans for the first time ever, according to the Enquirer.
For the first time ever, registered Democrats will outnumber registered Republicans in Hamilton County, as a surge in turnout for Tuesday’s presidential primary brought at least 84,000 new voters under the Democratic banner.
“What yesterday speaks to is some incredible excitement in the Democratic primary -- whether you were supporting Clinton or Obama,” said Hamilton County Democratic Chairman Timothy M. Burke. “And you just didn’t have that kind of excitement on the other side.”
Though New York Sen. Hillary Clinton won the majority of Ohio’s delegates – and the coveted momentum that comes with winning a critical bellwether state – it was Sen. Barack Obama who carried Hamilton County.
Countywide, Obama won 62 percent of the vote, according to final, unofficial returns from the Hamilton County Board of Elections. In the city of Cincinnati, it was 72 percent. He took 25 of Cincinnati’s 26 wards.
All this means that come November, it's the Democrats' game to lose.
And as they say, as Ohio goes...
(PS: If you're an election supergeek, the Hamilton County precinct breakdown is an interesting read.)
2 comments:
Dave:
I'm a pollworker, and I can tell you that in our polling place, voters were freely given the choice to vote on any one of the three ballots, Democratic, Republican or Issues Only. I don't think there was anything in our signature books that indicated the voters prior party affiliation, and so we would not know if a voter 'switches' parties.
By the way, I couched the prior statement with the 'I don't think' because the Franklin Cty BOE has decided to go to a system where the pollworkers are specialized in one aspect of poll operations. In my case, I was a 'machine judge' meaning I got specific training on how to set up and operate the machines, but nothing else. Others were 'provisional judges' who handled all the provisional ballots. The rest were the sign-in judges who handled ID and voter authorization. There was no cross-training.
And there were absolutely folks who changed parties, mostly Republican to Democrat based on the questions they asked (e.g. "am I going to start getting mail from the Democrats now?")
It is a nightmare being a pollworker these days. Since the 2004 election, the rules have changed every election. Training classes are held 1-2 week prior to the election, but I still got a letter a few days before the election explaining what had changed SINCE my training class.
The voters are frustrated too. Some are just jerks and complain about how long it takes. Others see our occasional confusion about the rules and get nasty. I heard one guy ask why they let idiots run the polls. I told him it was because the smart guys like him thought being a pollworker was beneath them.
I beginning to think everyone should vote absentee. But then folks will say the Post Office steals ballots...
PL
Thanks for the insight Paul. I spoke to people also who shared the same thing... that crossover was happening freely, and many voters were offered their choice of ballots. Still, I don't think 15,000 or more voters in Warren County for ex. were taking Dem ballots just to be mischievious. At the same time, I'm not under the illusion that there is now a Dem/Rep balance in SW Ohio. Simply that it's a different playing field, and that McCain can't afford to lose much ground here if he wants to carry Ohio.
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