Local voters denied chance to support Hillary?

I love election day ... I just do. I love the feel of the campaign train that's been picking up steam in the distance and now it's finally pulling into the station. The 2000 Presidential snafu into the late-night hours was enough to hook a lot of journalists.

A few notes to share from mid-afternoon in the newsroom:

Some voters in Stark County are complaining that they were denied a chance to vote for Hillary Clinton. They told their poll worker that they were Independents, so they were given a ballot with just issues on it. Looks like they filled out that ballot before they complained that they would rather have had one with the Democratic primary contestants so they could vote for Senator Clinton; it's too late at that point. Other Independents are making the same claim. Not sure where the confusion lies because it's obvious there are party primaries today ... but the Independent ballot complaints have happened more than once today.

Speaking of Clinton, a group of her supporters claim they were physically assaulted last night outside Hillary's Akron headquarters. 26-year-old William Bonner allegedly grabbed at the signs and tried to go all Howard Dean on their butts. Police say Bonner also punched a 61-year-old man in the head. Bonner has been charged with assault, carrying a concealed weapon, and a host of other charges. I don't know if Bonner voted absentee, but I doubt anyone was making arrangements at the Summit County lock-up for him to fill in the dots on his ballot today.

The folks in Cuyahoga County are getting a lot of national airtime today as they use a warehouse to tally all of the ballots via 15 vote counting machines. We also got word that some voters feared their votes wouldn't count because they'd torn off their stubs when they shouldn't have. The official word we have in the newsroom is that poll workers were instructed to tell folks to leave the stubs attached, but if they were torn off, the ballots would still be counted.

Still waiting on the Supreme Court to rule on Alex Arshinkoff's request for a stay at the Board of Elections. Don Varian is set to become a board member tomorrow but AA still believes that the party's recommendation of Brian Daley should stand.

Some Stark County voters claim that their ballots said "replacement card" on them. The poll worker reportedly explained these replacements were being used because the original ballots did not pass a 6 a.m. test. We're still checking on that one.

More in a bit .. Eric