Field Report: Steady Stream of Early Voters in Wood County

Earl reported this afternoon that there has been a steady stream of early voters at the Wood County Courthouse in Bowling Green today. Almost all of the voters are young people ("I'm the only gray-hair around," he remarked), quite a few with Obama buttons or shirts, many of them quite obviously students at Bowling Green State University. In short, they seem like they are all or mostly all Democrats.

While we were on the phone, a van pulled up with four voters and some volunteers for Vote Today Ohio, a project committed to turning out likely Democratic voters for same-day registration and voting during the overlap period (through October 6th). First I spoke to Susan, who said that she had been at University of Toledo yesterday but had little success there because it is more of a commuter school -- students had their own cars to get to the early voting location. Today she relocated to BGSU where the prospects for helping people get to the polling place look much more promising.

Then I spoke to Craig, another volunteer, who said that he had helped bring in 33 early voters yesterday and expected to transport about 40 today. He said that he had been in touch with the College Democrats organization about the effort and that there had been attention paid to it in the Bowling Green News and on the college radio station. He expects that publicity and word-of-mouth communication by those who have already voted will generate a big increase in participation over the next few days.