CLEVELAND — This weekend marks the final two days of in-person early voting in Ohio ahead of the Nov. 7 election. Your local Board of Election office will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
On Friday, voters making their way to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, like Christine Griffith, said voting early was about convenience.
"I work nearby the Board of Elections, so it's just convenient to stop by on my way home, and I didn't want to worry about long lines and things like that," said Griffith.
Cheri Daniels of Cleveland said, for her, it guarantees nothing gets in her way on Tuesday.
"I wanted to come out early to make sure I got in and could get my voting done and make sure it's all over with."
But that wasn't always the case. Twenty years ago, you may remember there was no in-person early voting period in Ohio, and if you wanted to vote absentee by mail, you needed a legitimate excuse, like you were going to be out of town on Election Day.
Asked if he remembered those days, Donnell Roberts of Cleveland laughed and said, "yeah it was a pain."
What brought about the change was the presidential election of 2004. You'll remember the battle between George Bush and John Kerry that year was all about Ohio, and it literally came down to Ohio on election night. Whoever won the state would take the White House. But the answer to that question was initially delayed because of issues with voting machines, provisional ballots and here in Cuyahoga County and across the state, long lines that led to long waits.
"I've been here, what, 3 hours?" one voter told us in 2004. At the time, he was willing to wait; others that day weren't and left, he said, adding, "Yes I know at least 10 people that did."
He wasn't alone. Rev. Jesse Jackson was among those called to testify before Congress the very next month at a hearing looking into the issues in Ohio.
“In Ohio, I stood in the rain with citizens who waited for two hours, four hours, six hours just to cast a vote that might or might not be counted," said Jackson. “We need emergency attention in Ohio now.”
One of the congressmen at the 2004 hearing, Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) remarked at the time about the efforts the U.S. was taking to ensure that members of the Armed Forces serving in Afghanistan could vote.
"The United States government was financing the delivery of ballots to the remotest areas of Afghanistan by donkey," he said. "If we can guarantee the right to vote in the most rural areas of Afghanistan, we certainly ought to be able to guarantee that we can count every vote in Ohio."
The Ohio Legislature took note and took action not long after in 2005 with the creation of not only no-excuse absentee voting by mail, but also the four weeks of early in-person voting that wraps up this weekend.
Once she was given the choice, Daniels said she never looked back.
"I vote early every year," she said Friday.
