8:10 The first set of ballots arrives at the Portage County Board of Elections. Each of the county’s 131 precincts is issued a red bag filled with supplies for the day of voting, while the yellow bag is used to transport the ballots and computer memory cards from the voting machines. Volunteers and precinct poll workers carry in the bags to be counted by other workers.

8:45 The line of bag handlers stretches down the hallway of the PCBOE. “Everything in the board of elections is done with one Republican and one Democrat,” says a worker for the board of elections. “The people who bring the bags back from the polling locations are one Democrat and one Republican.” Pairing these workers helps to ensure that the results are collected fairly. These judges volunteer to dedicate the whole day (7 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.) to the county’s election. THEY DON’T VOLUNTEER – THEY ARE PAID ABOUT 110 BUCKS A DAY…

9:15 All but a handful of precincts have turned in their results bags. In the PCBOE cafeteria, the results from the first 10 precincts are posted. A group of a half dozen local citizens pour over the sheets of paper showing Strickland, Cordray, Clyde and Kline in the lead with 9.7% of the votes counted so far.

10:02 Results from 62 precincts are officially posted, and the cafeteria group chatters about the success of the Streetsboro school levies. “I want my son to have the best education he can get,” says Donna Descenzo, the mother of a fourth grader in the district “If this levy fails, he’s really going to be hurting.” They also comment on the tight county commissioner race. With 47.3% of the county’s votes in, Marsilio leads the race by just .06% of the votes.

DID YOU LEAVE THEN?