Orem, Utah — Voters are turning out in record numbers to the polls here in the Salt Lake area and vicinities. Democrats sporting “Obama for Change” shirts seem to be the most abundant at the time, but many voters know that McCain is favored to take the state by a landslide.
Most interesting is the high turnout of male and female couples wearing “Vote No on Proposition 8” shirts, and the amount of signs up and around the area at various homes, business and proximities to voting centers. 800 miles away from Utah, Proposition 8 stands as a hot-button issue for voters who are turning out to the polls this morning there. But you would think that in Utah, the issue is our own to vote on. Proposition 8 is one of the most heavily covered issues here in Utah on radio, TV, and newspapers. But why has Utah cared so much about an issue that’s going on over 800 miles away?
Utah has a strong and growing gay community. Yearly in Salt Lake City, a gay pride parade is held, publication of a gay and lesbian magazine based in Salt Lake City, and the establishment of the Utah Pride Center–a resource center for gay teens, parents, and adults. However, even with the growing community of gay partnerships here in Utah, and the ever growing stronghold of gay clubs and members, Utah is still considered very traditional in thought and action when it comes to voting and going against traditional issues at the voting polls.
– Associated Content
(CNN) – After voting at Albright United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Arizona, the Republican presidential candidate is headed to New Mexico and Colorado, two Western states McCain’s campaign believes he can win despite trailing in the polls.
The latest CNN poll of polls in New Mexico going into Election Day has McCain’s Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, leading 51 percent to 43 percent with 6 percent unsure. The last poll of polls in Colorado has Obama leading 51 percent to 45 percent with 4 percent unsure.
McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, voted in her home town of Wasilla, Alaska, on Tuesday morning. She later will head to Arizona for a post-election celebration.
The Republican nominee’s last campaign swing comes after he completed a seven-state campaign blitz on Monday. During that trip, he made a campaign stop in Nevada, another Western state in which he is trailing Obama.
But McCain campaign manager Rick Davis argued Monday that victories in the three Western battleground states Tuesday could help McCain overcome potential losses in Virginia and Florida and help the Arizona Republican win the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House. Video
“If we can win Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, all of a sudden we’ve got a new pathway to victory,” he said. “Those weren’t even on the list three weeks ago.”
On Monday McCain campaigned in a number of battleground states he needs to turn his way if he is to win the presidency, including Florida and Pennsylvania.
“Just one day left until we take America in a new direction. We need to win in Pennsylvania and tomorrow, with your help, we will win,” McCain said, pounding his fist on the podium at an event in Moon Township, Pennsylvania.
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Putting Pennsylvania in the Republican column Tuesday night is especially critical to the Republican effort, as there are few paths McCain can take to get to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election without the state’s 21 electoral votes.
Turning Pennsylvania from blue to red may be difficult for McCain. CNN’s poll of polls calculated Monday shows Obama leading McCain 51 percent to 43 percent in the state, with 6 percent unsure. The McCain campaign, however, says that their own polling suggests that the Pennsylvania race is tighter than published polls suggest.
BY EVAN S. BENN, JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA, PATRICK DANNER AND DAVID GELLES
Maimi Herlad
As Election Day neared its halfway point, South Florida’s polling places were humming with voters who reported steadily moving lines and few glitches.
Voters waited between one and three hours in most spots, but the lines are shorter Tuesday than they were during the two-week early-voting period.
Coral Gables resident Marilyn Myman said she had tried to vote early but always found the lines too long. Not so on Election Day — she was in and out of her polling place in 25 minutes.
”It was a breeze,” Myman said.
About one of every four registered voters in Miami-Dade, Broward and statewide cast their ballots early, and many others voted absentee. That is helping to keep Election Day waits at a minimum despite an expected 80 percent turnout.
Another help: Voters are spread between 1,100 different polling places in Miami-Dade and Broward, making lines faster than at the 37 locations that hosted early voting.
”It’s short here compared to what it’s been,” Ken Goldberg, 83, said as he waited to vote at Century Village in Pembroke Pines.
All South Florida polling sites opened on time at 7 a.m., election workers said, and many had people waiting in lawn chairs and on blankets before dawn. Lines will be cut off at 7 p.m., but anyone in line by then will be allowed to vote.
All but two Florida polling places opened on schedule, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said. One was a West Palm Beach site where a poll worker delayed voters while he finished paperwork. The other, in Leon County, had a problem with the door locks that kept workers and voters pacing outside until someone opened the doors.
”This is unacceptable,” Browning said.
Pollwatchers from the AARP are canvassing the state and said they were satisfied with Florida’s voting process.
”We haven’t seen anything on the ground that looks to be a problem,” said Lori Parham, director of the group’s Florida office. “For the most part across the state, things seem to going smoothly.”
Election workers urged voters to be familiar with the ballot before getting to the polls — Broward voters will have to wade through four-page, double-sided ballots, the longest in the state.
A few early glitches: a power outage in east Miami included a polling place at Morningside Park, and broken optical-scanning machines were reported at the First Congregational Church in Fort Lauderdale and Holiday Springs Village Auditorium in Margate. The power outage did not affect voting because generators kicked in, and election workers said other scanners would be used to replace the ones that are down.
Dr. Joanne Richards carved out two hours from her day so she could vote at Rick Case Honda in Davie. She was toward the end of the swift-moving line at 7:30 a.m.
”I’m usually not this excited about anything,” Richards said. “At the end of the day, we’ll either have our first female vice president or first black president. I’m excited to see how the country reacts.”
Solange Bourgeg waited for more than two hours at the Uleta Park Community Center with her 12-year-old grandson, Ian McNeal, who drew in his sketchbook to pass the time.
”My mom said this is making history,” said Ian, a seventh-grader at American Heritage Middle. “It’s exciting — but also a little boring.”
Bourgeg, however, was staying put.
”Even if the wait was five hours, I wouldn’t leave,” she said. “I want to vote today, and I want to vote for Barack Obama.”
At the Coral Gables Youth Center, Al Rodriguez sported a McCain-Palin button on his T-shirt as he stood first in line. He called this election “the most important.”
”I’m looking out for the future of my kids and for the best for this country,” said Rodriguez, 69.
This election will be the state’s first big test of new optical-scan voting machines, which election officials promise will better serve voters than ATM-like touch-screens or butterfly ballots. It was Florida’s paper ballots and hanging chads in 2000 that left the country waiting 37 days for its next president-elect.
Tanya Lewicki was not comfortable after her experience with the optical scanners at St. Richard Catholic Church in Palmetto Bay. She said the machine gave off warning bells when it scanned her ballot, and a poll worker pressed some buttons to make it better.
”It gave me the heebie jeebies,” Lewicki said. “It was weird. I didn’t like her pushing the buttons in the machine.”
The state’s 27 electoral votes — more than any other swing state — are again considered critical to the outcome of the too-close-to-call presidential race. Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have spent significant time the past two weeks pushing for last-minute votes with their running mates in the Sunshine State.
Despite the candidates’ best efforts, some voters were still undecided on Tuesday. Like Gabriel Rodriguez, 20, who said he was ”iffy” on his presidential decision as he waited for a chance to vote at the Southwest Regional Library in Pembroke Pines. He was leaning toward Obama, he said, but wouldn’t be sure until he filled out his ballot.
South Florida voters also will decide Tuesday who will represent them in Congress, on the state’s Supreme Court and in municipal government. Broward voters will choose a sheriff, and there are several state constitutional and local charter amendments on the ballot.
All of those races and amendments make for a beefy ballot, so being prepared is the best way to avoid a longer poll experience than necessary.
”Voters need to take the responsibility of looking at their sample ballot, checking and seeing how they are going to vote and looking at the amendments,” said Evelyn Hale, a Broward elections spokeswoman. “Come prepared.”
Thanks to early voting, many won’t have to come at all.
About 2.6 million people in Florida voted early, and another 1.7 million Floridians voted absentee, a total of about 40 percent of the state’s registered voters.
About 580,000 people cast early ballots in Miami-Dade and Broward, about 25 percent of all voters. Absentee votes raised the pre-Election Day turnout totals to close to 40 percent, election workers said.
The past two presidential elections have brought 73 percent and 74 percent turnout in Miami-Dade and similar turnouts in Broward.
If this election brings 80 percent turnout as expected, about one million people could be lining up to vote at one of the 1,100 polling places in Miami-Dade and Broward.
”And one of those people will be me,” Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said. “Haven’t had a chance to vote yet.”
It’s not necessary to bring a voter ID card, but a driver’s license or some form of photo identification with a signature helps the process go smoother.
Election supervisors said they hope to have absentee ballots tallied and posted on their websites by 7:15 p.m.; early-voting totals should be posted by 7:30 p.m.; total votes will roll in starting at 8:30 p.m.
Voters were breezing through Key West’s Old City Hall on Tuesday, where more than 200 people had already cast ballots by 9:30 a.m.
”We usually don’t get that many all day,” poll worker Ed Guillory said.
Jennifer Conde and friend Elizabeth Prichard were all smiles as they left the voting site.
”We walked right in. Voted,” Conde said. “And now we’re going to breakfast.”
Miami Herald writers Laura Figueroa, Breanne Gilpatrick, Patricia Mazzei, Kathleen McGrory, Marc Caputo, Cammy Clark, Fred Tasker, Charles Rabin, Adam H. Beasley, Nirvi Shah, Julia Strasser, Jenna L. Farmer, Virgina Gil and Cassie Glenn contributed to this report.
By Andrew Harris
CHICAGO, IL (Bloomberg) — Chicago is bracing itself for Barack Obama’s hometown election-night rally. The event scheduled for Grant Park, known as the city’s front yard, may draw as many as 1 million people, Mayor Richard M. Daley said. Officials are hoping for a peaceful gathering, while preparing for possible violence that could further tarnish Chicago, which has the highest murder rate among the country’s biggest cities.
“You have to be concerned,” Daley said at a press conference on Oct. 28. “You get a million people coming. That’s a lot of people. You better be concerned.”
Daley also is trying to avoid the fate of his father, Richard J. Daley. He was mayor the last time Grant Park was in the U.S. political spotlight, during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when the nation saw televised riots and police beatings of Vietnam War protesters.
Tonight’s gathering will be held about four blocks from the site of the shooting of four people, one fatally, in July during the city’s Taste of Chicago festival. The murder was one of 427 in the country’s third-largest city this year.
That works out to one homicide for every 6,635 residents, the highest rate among the country’s largest municipalities. The Chicago figure compares with one in every 12,417 in Los Angeles and one in 19,103 in New York, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and local police departments as of Oct. 27.
“We’re not proud of it, but you don’t hide it,” Daley said of the murder rate. “We’ll get it down next year.”
Crowd Control
The city is closing streets, blocking park access and putting its entire 13,500-member police force on duty today. The police are coordinating their control of crowds with the U.S. Secret Service, assigned to protect Obama and his family.
“This is obviously a large venue but it’s not unprecedented,” Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said in a telephone interview.
Obama, 47, is returning to his political base to watch the results. He was elected in 1996 to the state’s Senate, representing the city’s South Side for eight years before his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004. The Democratic nominee led Republican John McCain 60 percent to 38 percent in Illinois, a Nov. 1 Rasmussen poll showed.
In 1968, pictures published across the U.S. showed Chicago police beating war protesters with batons. Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff criticized the police during a nationally televised address for its “Gestapo” tactics. News photos showed the elder Daley responding with angry shouts at Ribicoff.
Different Times
Today, racial tensions have eased and unrest over the U.S. military in Iraq is more subdued than over Vietnam, making Chicago “a different place than in 1968,” said former alderman Dick W. Simpson, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois — Chicago.
Even so, he said, “there will always be some possibility of danger.”
Organizers expect 72,500 ticketed guests to witness what may be the election of the first black U.S. president. Obama will address the crowd in the southeast corner of the 325-acre park.
The July shooting during the Taste of Chicago festival came as a crowd estimated at 1 million dispersed after a July 3 fireworks display. Daley downplayed the risk of further violence on election night.
“That night will be a celebration,” he said at the press conference, discounting the possibility of Obama losing to McCain, 72. “nd we’re asking families and everybody to come together. Of course security is always going to be important.”
Wiping Out 1968
A park permit application filed by the Democratic National Committee said the event would include 7,500 participants and 65,000 spectators. Justin DeJong, an Obama campaign spokesman, declined to estimate how many people might actually turn out.
The Obama rally differs from the angry gatherings of 1968, said retired journalist Lois Wille, who was tear-gassed as she covered the Grant Park riots 40 years ago.
“1968 was protests, angry people protesting the Vietnam War and the angry cops who were slugging them over the head,” said Wille, who is author of “Forever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago’s Lakefront,” a history of Grant Park. “If it is a great big huge happy evening, maybe it will wipe the memory of 1968 and the riots out.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Chicago at [email protected].
