Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Local polls dealing with serious issues

I'm literally by myself right now in the Akron-Canton newsroom. Our lone evening producer and photographer are bouncing between the Issue 8 gathering and the Summit County Dems party in downtown Akron ... they'll get some reaction on tape that I can use during the 10 p.m. broadcast. I'm monitoring results, answering phones, blogging, and preparing to do cut-ins for WKYC on a moment's notice.

Here's what we're hearing around town ..

More Stark County folks have called me complaining about getting the wrong ballot, usually an Independent ballot when they'd asked for a Democratic ballot.

Several thousand folks remain without power in Stark County, which has affected the polls. One polling place in Atwater Township was using flashlights for the main voting floor while fire fighters used a generator with just enough power for a few touch-screen voting machines.

Lots of trees down around Summit County from the ice storm, but Peggy at the Summit BOE tells me there have been no problems. She also tells me that as of 8:45 p.m., the absentee ballots still had not been completely counted and that not all of the precinct ballots have even been brought back to the Board Offices yet.

With Obama's folks filing suit over the lack of enough ballots in Cuyahoga County and other technical issues in Sandusky, the Secretary of State has mandated that the polls in some places be kept open until at least 9 p.m. and no counties can release results until after then.

If you're watching our coverage on Channel 3, no you're not dreaming. That's really Jim Donovan reading the news and election results. Anchor Tim White lost his voice mid-day because of a cold and couldn't go at 100 percent. Our bosses made the call to the bullpen around 5:30 p.m. JD covers sports for a living, but he also follows politics and local news so he was on his "A game." Knowing Tim, they had to carry him out of there kicking and screaming because Tim loves election night.

OK .. some idiot just used gasoline to set an apartment building on fire on Copley Road ... police and fire fighters are evacuating the building .. and looking for the suspect on foot. This appears to have been a domestic dispute that got out of hand ... just what we need on election night .. breaking news.

It's 9 p.m. ... Texas polls closing ... stay tuned .. Eric

1 comment:

Frumpy Curmudgeon said...

I'm watching the 10pm election returns show - and Jim is doing pretty well pinch-hitting for Tim. I give him props for not only filling in on the "news" side - but taking on what is arguably the most challenging type of anchor duty, election coverage.