Updated: 6:25 p.m.
A long day working the polls
Nichelle Montoney stood outside of the Cudell Recreation Center on West Boulevard handing out pens, nail files and other campaign trinkets.
She started at 6:30 a.m. and planned to stay until 7:30 p.m. For most of the time, a steady stream of voters flowed into the polls. She greeted them and asked them to support Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Judge Pamela Hawkins, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Mike DeWine earlier this year. A mutual friend had asked Montoney to volunteer for the judge’s campaign. Montoney had met Hawkins and liked her, so she didn’t flinch.
When many think of people spending a lot of time at a polling place, they’ll often think of poll workers or even voters waiting in long lines. But there are others: The campaign workers and volunteers, who often spend long hours outside of polling places handing out campaign literature or talking up their candidates.
Thirteen hours? No problem for Montoney, who came prepared. A big bottle of water sat at the side of her cloth folding chair. Her “backup water” was in the car. So was a tent, kerosene heater and heavy sweatshirt just in case it gets chilly. On a sunny day with unusually high 70-degree temperatures, she spent most of the day in a sleeveless t-shirt.
“I got breakfast on the way here, my friend swung by and brought me lunch,” she said. “My best friend is talking about bringing me dinner.”
Megan Alabaugh stood several feet away handing out Democratic Party campaign literature. She wore a Sherrod Brown shirt — a holdover from when the U.S. senator was last in office. Her day started at 5 a.m. delivering and setting up signs at five polling locations. At 11 a.m. she headed to Cudell for her 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift, which ran 30 minutes over until the volunteer replacing her could settle in.
Alabaugh wouldn’t have spent Election Day any other way.
“I still believe that voting is our best chance at seeing the change we want, “ said Alabaugh, who is central committee person from Ward 13.
Packed parking lots and provisional ballots
The parking lot was packed as the after-work crowd filed into the Cudell Recreation Center. Some drivers circled the lot, waiting for a parking space to open up.
Megan Odum has been a poll worker since 2016. She greeted voters as they walked in, instructing them where to go.
“It’s been a busy day,” Odum said. “Since we opened the polls, we have seen non-stop traffic.”
Voter turnout countywide was at 52% just before 6:30 p.m., topping the 2022 midterm election. In Ward 12 where Cudell sits, turnout was about 40% with an hour left before the polls closed.
According to Odum, the general vibe of the day has been upbeat. Some people were confused about where their proper polling place is, but she and her colleagues were able to point them in the right direction, she said.
“That was frustrating for some people, but we are just here to do our jobs and make sure the day runs smoothly,” Odum said.
Voter Jennifer Baker was in and out of the polls in 15 minutes with her teenage daughter and two friends in tow.
“One reason I’m here is to inspire my daughter and her friends,” Baker said. “I couldn’t let this moment pass by.”
About 10 minutes away at Luiz Muñoz Marin School near Clark and Scranton avenues, the scene was more chill. There were just over a dozen voters in line waiting to cast their ballots.
The parking lot lights had not come on yet, so signage and directions were hard to see. Some voters used their cell phone flashlights to illuminate their way through the parking lot to the building.
David Delgado, the voting location manager, said it had been busy with a lot of provisional ballots being cast at this location.
“We are seeing a number of people who may have changed addresses since the last time they voted and didn’t update it with the board of elections,” Delgado said. “Otherwise, it’s been a good day.”
Voter Charles White came to the polls, he said, because “it’s the right thing to do.”
“I try to keep up with everything going on,” White said. “In this election, I was really interested in the different judicial races.”
Protecting voters’ rights at the polls
Across Cuyahoga County, about 100 volunteers from Election Protection, a nonpartisan coalition, fanned out to help voters who encountered issues casting ballots.
At Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Garfield Heights, volunteers in purple shirts fielded concerns that ranged from dim lighting inside a polling place that made ballots hard to read to parking lots that left seniors with long walks to their polling place, said Erika Anthony, executive director of Cleveland VOTES, who served as a volunteer at the church and other nearby polling locations.
By law, voters with mobility issues can request that a ballot be brought to them and collected from their car. Anthony said when the Election Protection volunteers arrived, there was no curbside voting location until they alerted officials, who created one.
Anthony said voter protection involves more than big issues, such as someone attempting to deny a person the right to vote.
“We deal with the whole range of issues,“ she said. “The overarching theme is for people to have a fair and accessible voting experience.”
Voter V.D. Wagner said that the polling place was too dark.
“I could barely read the ballot,“ she said. “I had to move around until I found the proper lighting.”
Like several voters Signal Cleveland interviewed, this was a new polling place for Wagner. She said she had received a letter from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections alerting her to her new polling place. However, many voters told Anthony and Election Protection volunteers that they had not received letters with their new polling places.
The board’s community outreach manager, Mike West, said a letter was sent to every voter whose polling place had changed. The board did outreach, he said, including going to library branches, to inform voters that their polling places may have changed.
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James Byrse has worked the polls for years, but this year’s turnout at East Tech High School caught him by surprise.
“Turnout is way higher than normal,” said Byrse, the voting location manager at the school on East 55th Street. “In a full day you might get 50 to 75 people. We’ve got over 200, and it’s not even lunchtime.”
East Tech is in Ward 5, which includes the Central neighborhood. The ward is often pointed to as having the lowest voter turnout in the city. Byrse and other residents were hoping things would be different this year.
“I think there has been low turnout because people are discouraged,” said Rosemary Anderson, a volunteer with Greater Cleveland Congregations. She had helped register voters in the ward and was glad to see people following through by voting. Turnout was at 17.9% shortly before 1 p.m., according to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections live voter turnout site.
Countywide, 169,164 voters had cast their ballot as of about 1 p.m. on Election Day, according to the board.
That’s on top of residents who already voted by mail or in-person. As Signal Cleveland reported this week, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections officials said 54,000 people voted early and in person this year. That’s more than double the 20,000 early in-person ballots cast the same way ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
The trend doesn’t continue with mail-in voting, though. Early data shows more than 106,710 mail-in ballots — about 88% of the total number requested — were returned to the county before Election Day, county officials wrote on Facebook Monday. That’s down from the nearly 135,840 ballots received in the last midterm election. Mail-in ballots can be returned to the county board until 7:30 p.m. today.
‘They’ll help you’
By late morning, cars were pulling into the East Tech parking lot every few minutes. Anderson greeted people as they arrived and asked if they had any questions about voting.
Dwight Jake did. He had moved since the last time he voted and didn’t know whether East Tech was still his polling place. Anderson urged him to go inside and check. When he looked as if he might turn his car around and leave, she persisted.
“Go inside,” she said. “They’ll help you.”
Jake was back in the parking lot several minutes later, headed to his correct polling place. His confused expression had turned to one of contentment. He said he hadn’t voted in the 2024 presidential election. It wasn’t a priority because he was “too busy working.”
“It’s important now because I want to put my voice into the system so that it can be heard,” he said.
Across the parking lot, Gregory Jackson was getting into his pickup truck. He said he never misses a chance to vote and thought this year was especially important.
“We need to get rid of some of the crooks in Washington,” he said. “It looks like they’re getting rich while everyone else is suffering like hell.”
Sherman Kitchen had been passing out pamphlets for Pamela Hawkins, who is running to keep the seat she was appointed to this year on the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court. He and his small dog, Peanut, arrived at the school about 6 a.m.
“From 6 to 8 it was slow, and then it started to pick up,” he said. By late morning, Kitchen was darting from voter to voter, handing out literature.
