In warm, windy weather more like May than November, about a dozen voters lined up at dawn outside Dickens Elementary School in southeast Cleveland, waiting for the polls to open at 6:30 a.m.
“I’ve never missed a vote,” said Katia McArthur.
“We complain about what should be and shouldn’t,” said Rosie Williamson. “If you don’t participate with your vote, you’re not trying to change them.”
At East Cleveland’s Superior School for the Performing Arts, Darryle Brown said, “As a Black person, I feel obligated to vote. People sacrificed a lot to get me that right.”
By 7:48 p.m., 18 minutes after the polls’ official closing time, 63% of registered Cuyahoga County voters had cast ballots in person or by mail, much fewer than the 71 percent of 2020, the last presidential election year. But Mike West, spokesman for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said he didn’t know if some voters who lined up by 7:30 p.m. were still voting. The board will review about 20,000 provisional ballots and may receive a few more mail ballots that met Monday’s postmark deadline.
For this election, 889,746 Cuyahoga County residents were registered, slightly more than in 2020.
Polling officials reported plenty of traffic today.
“It’s a perfect day for voting,” said Lisa Horak, deputy manager at Lincoln West High School in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood.
“We’ve never had such strong turnout, and I’ve been here three, four election cycles,” said James Byres, poll manager at East Tech High School on East 55th Street.
“It was crazy this morning, and it’s been steady ever since,” said poll worker Bob Turowski at Parma’s Thoreau Park Elementary School. “This is the most I’ve ever seen, and I’ve worked several elections.”
It took about 90 minutes during much of the day to vote at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Community Center in Shaker Heights. The library had picked up two precincts that used to vote at Woodbury Elementary School, now being remodeled.
“We actually went there and found that they were closed,” said Richard Marshall.
“It’s not going to stop us from voting,” said his wife, Kat Marshall.
“It’s a nice day. We’re fine,” said Richard.
Leslie Wolfe, who managed the polls at Fairhill Partners, said lines reached 45 minutes long in the morning, then dwindled. There was no line a few minutes before 7:30 p.m.
The temperature reached 78 degrees Fahrenheit at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, a record high for Nov. 5. A few polling places lost power in the wind, but all had backup power.
Ohio voters are considering close, contentious races today for the presidency and a U.S. Senate seat. They’re also weighing U.S. House members, state legislators, judges, 47 community measures, the Cleveland schools’ tax, five other districts’ taxes, the Cuyahoga County’s arts tax, and Ohio Issue 1, which would replace a Republican-controlled panel with a balanced one to draw state and federal legislative districts.
In the past two years, state lawmakers have imposed several new restrictions on voters, including photo IDs. But voters this morning did not complain. “Everybody should be forced to show ID,” Nicholas Miller said at Zone Recreation Center in Detroit-Shoreway.
“It’s good so people don’t vote more than once,” said Mary Hubbard at Zone.
Some people don’t bother to vote. C.J. Green said she came to Zone just to bring her son to day care. “I don’t like either party that’s in power.”
But Tee Allen said at Superior, “It’s a right that we need to exercise.”
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