In Ohio, Wary Eyes On Election Process

Clarence Rodgers has been driving Cleveland voters from the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church to an early-voting center several times a week. (By Mary Pat Flaherty -- The Washington Post)
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"Did I register? Three times," joked a supervisor of a demolition crew tearing down an old public housing complex on the east side.

"I signed 73 times, got a cigarette every time I put down my name," said worker Randy Kinney, bringing up one of the much-publicized local voter-registration problems being investigated by the county elections board.

His co-worker Kevin Jackson shook his head. He said he isn't happy that some bad registrations cards were submitted, but his big worry was the lawsuit that challenged new voters whose personal information did not match other state records, sometimes because of slight clerical mistakes.

"I've been thinking I need to go down to the county and make sure it all is good," said Jackson, 40, who changed his registration when he recently moved to neighboring Parma. "I know we're joking about it, but this is serious stuff, and I want to be make sure I get to vote with no trouble."

"Okay, it is serious," Kinney said, relenting, "but here is the fix" -- and he raised his thumb. "Get some of that purple ink they have in Baghdad" to mark who voted.

"Please do not start up with that ink again," Jackson begged.

Kinney, 46, is a McCain supporter who lives about 40 miles southwest of Cleveland and has a disdain for what he sees as the loose ways of city politics. "They want change up here, and I'd rather go backwards."

Jackson is an Obama backer, and "loose" is not the word he uses. "I don't want voter fraud, but I think it seems to be going the other way, where people may be kept off the voter lists when they should have been kept on."

Both men said they will vote, and both said they believe their votes will count -- a triumph of faith over skepticism that was not uncommon among nearly three dozen voters interviewed last week in Ohio's most populous county.

Across town from the demolition site, Patty Ruccella, 44, whipped around her shoulder bag and pointed to a small pink "I [Heart] Sarah Palin" button to prove her interest in the election.

"People around me are talking about whether bad registrations got through by people hired to collect them, and it looks like some did," said Ruccella, who lives on Cleveland's west side. But she believes that any tainted names are being weeded out. "I have to have faith the system works."

This election cycle, Brunner has required counties to have a plan to distribute voting machines more equitably across neighborhoods and to have extra ballots on hand. But those improvements have not eliminated court disputes.