Rafael Chajon showed up at his Lakewood precinct ready to vote at around 8am yesterday morning. The room was full of voters, but Chajon only waited about 10 minutes to cast his ballot.
Rafael Chajon: It went rather smoothly. It's an in and out kind of thing, if you have your ID ready and they are helping you a lot at the table.
That's a tremendous difference from previous years for voters like Chajon. Elections in Cuyahoga County have made plenty of headlines for voting machine problems, pollworkers who don't show up to work and long lines.
Worried about long lines this time around, seven teenagers from Shaker Heights High School's choirs came out to sing around 6pm yesterday at the polling location at Fairhill Center on Cleveland's east side.
teen 1:We're trying to make people happy when they have to wait in line.
teen 2: We don't want them to leave.
But the teens actually had trouble finding voters waiting to cast ballots. Cuyahoga County's Jane Platten told reporters last night that while voting was heavy early on election day, lines tapered off.
Jane Platten: In terms of the turnout at the polling locations today, maybe they just strolled in and out. I don't know but I really expected longer lines today.
Platten had expected nearly 70 percent of Cuyahoga County's voters to cast ballots. But turnout was closer to 60 percent, and about 280 thousand ballots were cast early. Platten congratulated her staff and voters for dealing with new optical scanners at each precinct successfully. She said there were some minor technical issues that were addressed quickly.Platten congratulated her staff and voters for handling new optical scanners at each precinct successfully. Minor technical issues were addressed quickly, and debacles like the 2006 primary, when the vote count was delayed for five days, are now hopefully behind them. Mhari Saito, 90.3