There's something fundamentally wrong about letting partisanship inside the voting booth.

This isn't to say that the volunteers who man the lines and the booths and all the other stages aren't for one party or another, but they should be non-political in their function, and partisan behaviour should be a red flag that something is going wrong in the democratic process.

But to actually allow party volunteers, people who have basically declared that they have a bias, to be integrated into the voting process is disgusting.

Well, the idea is to mimic the adversarial system of the courtroom, and to keep an eye on the election workers who can be partisans themselves.

What really disgusts me is the special attention that minority communities get from those champions of liberty, the GOP, through thier Block The Vote program. Now with fewer dogs and more lawyers!

I've spent a few hours outside the polling locations on that side of town, following the Republican voter thugs around the parking lots. There have been a few incidents, but nothing major. Local news is telling horror stories about the challengers in Cincinnati, however.

Two volunteers from Election Protection outside; one from Voter Protection (affiliated with Ohio AFL-CIO) inside. We were covered. A commenter on another blog said something about a challenger at this precinct in the early morning, but he must've left.

Black turnout was especially high. They're maybe 70% of the population in the neighborhood, but about 80% of the voters in line. Fox 19 sent a camera. In Cincy, poor black people voting is news.

I've heard reports of challengers at other urban precincts, but for the most part they seem to be intimidated by the sheer number of voters.

On the walk back to my place, a young man approaches and asks if I have a light. He's the black urban youth of suburban nightmares and CPD target practice: about 20 years old, over six feet tall, lean and rangy, dressed head to toe in black, baggy clothes, with gangsta rap audible through his Walkman headphones.

I light up his Swisher Sweet, and ask, "Did you vote?"

"Yeah. Voted this morning."

"Turnout's incredible," I say. "I've never seen it like this."

Then he puts on his "I'm a scary black man" face and looks right in my eyes. "Who'd you vote for?" It was almost an accusation -- I am, after all, white.

I laugh, "Kerry!"

"Good man," he says, and smiles. "You did a good thing."

Good man. That is just so adorable.

The idea that Republican political operatives are going to be mounting these challenges because they're "concerned about abuse" is just ridiculous. For once thing, we're talking about Ohio. For another, I've heard no reports that the Republicans have put together any evidence that vote fraud is a particular danger this year.

Are they going to be doing lots of challenges on voters' ages? I doubt it, since anyone who could plausibly be challenged on that will be used to having to prove their age. I expect the ones they'll be asking for will be proof of residency and proof of citizenship.

Challenging residency lays a heavy inconvenience-tax on voters who have to go home and dig up an old utility bill with their name on it, and makes it impossible to vote if the rent and utilities aren't in your name. Challenging citizenship makes voting inconvenient if you have a passport or birth certificate you can go get from home, and impossible if you can't lay your hands on the necessary documents or never had them in the first place.

Ohio is not exactly close to an international border. Where are all these wicked foreign nationals supposed to be coming from?

This has nothing to do with stopping vote fraud. The only point here is to intimidate and inconvenience potential voters in order to keep them from voting.

If any old-fashioned Republicans are reading this:

The guys who are mounting these challenges are not your friends. If they don't believe in government by the consent of the governed, they sure as hell don't believe in government by the consent of you.

Jesse is the man on Ohio voting issues today. I'm also keeping an eye on CincinnatiBlog for my local updates. I'm sure there are election bloggers in Dayton, Columbus, Toledo, etc. for those interested. But FYI, Cincinnati was the only urban district in the country to go Bush in 2000. It sure looks like that won't happen this time.

Teresa, I'm only in one corner of the state, but it's the Republicanest corner of the state. So far, what I've seen indicates that the good guys are winning on the ground. The courts are a different matter, but Atrios has early exit polls (2:30) for Ohio at 52-Kerry 48-Bush. How likely are court challenges with a four-point margin?

By and large, so far it doesn't appear as if the GOP vote challengers are doing much vote challenging. But there are still two and a half hours of voting time left. We'll have to see what happens.

John, I doubt that's the only trick they have up their sleeves.

Unless they required a birth certificate as proof of age, I could have proven all three. I carried my drivers' license, my passport, and the most recent two months' utility statements addressed to me at my current address.

I was unlikely to be challenged (and in fact was not challenged) as I am a white woman of middle-class appearance who does not speak with a non-Standard-American accent. (Moreover, my state is not considered a swing state.) But I didn't want to take the chance.

I'm privileged enough to have all three of those pieces of identification. If I had never traveled outside the U.S. I would have no reason to have a passport; if I had no car I would have no reason to have a license; and if I did not have the utilities in my name, say, if I lived at someone else's house, I wouldn't have been able to prove I live where I do. It could have been very problematic, and it bothers me to think of those who were challenged unfairly who don't have my privileges.

Actually, Ohio claims to have a border with Canada. This because you can take a ferry from Leamington (or maybe it's Kingsville), Ontario to Sandusky OH.

right now, it stands thusly:

Bush, George W. 2,655,975
Kerry, John F. 2,500,899

This is from 94.88% counties reporting, but probably doesn't include the voters who were challenged and the 71,561 provisional ballots which won't be dealt with for days or weeks.

I took that with me just in case, but my poll workers know me. Plus Jim went first so the one handling the signatures just pushed the book toward when Jim finished.