It is about ten in the morning in the America Votes Lorain County headquarters, an unassuming little three-room office above First Merit Bank on the corner of Main and College. The walls of the office are plastered with maps of the district, campaign posters and hand-lettered charts. In the phone bank room, cell phones litter the floor. In the adjoining room, America Votes coordinator Jessica Fishel from the Cleveland office fields phone calls. It is the day before the election, and she is doing all she can to get out the vote.

America Votes is an umbrella organization that brought together some three-dozen progressive organizations after the 2004 elections. While technically not a partisan organization, the idea behind the group is to be the left-wing answer to the united front of the Republican Party and their sharing of resources. It is unusual that America Votes would have an office in a town as small as Oberlin (the other three offices are in the much larger cities of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus), but Oberlin offers a valuable resource: the energy and dedication of students, many of them OC Democrats, in addition to many devoted progressives who live in town.

Over the weeks and days leading up to the election, volunteers have been identifying voters, establishing who is on their side, and then recording where every potential Democratic voter is located, something which organizer Jim Strayer calls “micro-targeting.” Finally, the efforts turned to “Get Out The Vote,” re-contacting voters to make sure they go to the polls.

“We do the same thing the Republican Party does,” explained Strayer. But it’s made more complicated by the fact that Democrats tend to move more, he said, from urban areas like Lorain to more conservative ex-urban communities where they often get forgotten.

The combined efforts of America Votes and the OC Dems continued throughout the semester despite a break-in the first week they had the office.

Lorain County Field Coordinator Brian Royer said, “A few lists [and] some computers were taken, but we were back on the campaign trail without skipping a beat.”

A highlight of the campaign was a phone bank/karaoke dance party that shattered the OC Republican record for calls made in one weekend.

Meanwhile, a coalition of student and administrative bodies working under the name The November Committee were acting to ensure that Oberlin students registered in Ohio were not disenfranchised by the new HB3 voting law. They were urging all students to vote absentee and sidestep the new requirement of proof of identity and residency (which calls for a valid street address, rather than an OCMR).

College junior Colin Koffel, a key organizer behind the committee, expressed concern about student rights at the polls this year. These seem to be well-founded concerns if the situation at the First Church polling station is any indication. Nancy Myers-Bradley, a volunteer poll monitor, saw a number of students turned away.

First-year Sophia Jayanty was barred from casting anything besides a provisional ballot because her bank statement had a different address than her registration card.

Sophomore Andrei Pohorelsky was sent to the polling station at the Oberlin Public library. “I’m very flummoxed right now,” he said. “I wish I’d voted absentee but I wanted to get the election experience.”

During the weeks leading up to the vote, organizing was dominated by left-leaning groups such as the OC Dems, Ohio Public Interest Research Group and Oberlin American Civil Liberties Union, with the campus Republican voice conspicuously absent.

College senior and vice-president of the OC Republicans Elliot Strathmann explained, “It was our decision to not organize something on our own.”

The Republicans helped out some in the voter registration drive, but in part due to the strength of liberal groups and numbers of Democratic voters on campus, the Republicans “haven’t been that strongly election-oriented,” he said.

Later on during Election Day, at the Oberlin Public Library polling station, voters seemed to be in line with America Votes’ vision for change in Ohio. “I voted Democratic because I’m sick of [the Republicans holding office],” said a voter who did not give her name. Another anonymous voter echoed her words almost verbatim.

Debbie Walker, a teacher, also voted mostly Democratic, explaining, “I voted Strickland governor because I feel he’s a strong advocate for our public school system.”

Dorena Gilcahrist, a social worker and graduate student, voted in favor of the minimum wage increase ballot initiative because of her research on people trying to live on minimum wage and her subsequent conclusion that the wage hike is “needed.”

Much was at stake this election cycle — not only was every constitutional office in the state of Ohio open, but nationally, the balance of power in Congress was set to shift.

Assistant Professor of Politics Michael Parkin said a change in control of the legislative branch would change the situation from “the Bush administration having uniform power to at least being challenged.”

According to Parkin’s analysis, a president in his last two years in office who “enjoys support from all three branches can leave legacy,” but a president opposed by Congress is more likely to become a lame duck.

Associate Politics Professor Eve Sandberg sees judgeship appointments as hanging in the balance this election, as well as the 2008 presidential election. “The road to the White House runs through Ohio,” she said.

On an international level, she commented that Democratic control of Congress “doesn’t mean a quick pullout from Iraq. As former President Bill Clinton has said, the Democrats’ position is not cut and run, it is stop and think.” However, Democratic control will likely set off investigations into the operation of the war, according to Sandberg.

Politics Professor Benjamin Schiff agreed with this sentiment and added that military action against Iran seems less likely under a Democratic Congress. Schiff is not overly hopeful that legislative action connected to the war on terror would be reviewed should both houses come under Democratic control, but he said, “it’s a possibility.”

OC Dems co-chair and College senior Charlie Sohne of the OC Dems was very satisfied with the results of the election. Not only did the House and Senate go Democratic, but a majority of gubernatorial races across the country went to Democrats. On a local level, Democrats experienced a near sweep in Ohio, gaining a Democratic senator and electing the Democratic incumbent for Oberlin’s district, Marcy Kaptur.

“We got there partially because the Republicans in power were so blatantly corrupt and incompetent,” said Sohne. The consequences of the Democratic victories will be that “everything taken away from us in the last eight years – economic justice, fair foreign policy, civil liberties, civil rights – will be [restored] and expanded.”

In sum, Sohne said, “It’s on us now.”