Straggling voters joined earlier arrivals at the Oberlin Public Library polling site on Tuesday as they waited for a restock of provisional ballots, only to be told at 7:30 p.m. that the Lorain County Board of Elections had ordered an insufficient number of ballots and no more were on the way. Although ballots did arrive two hours later, this inconvenience comes as one more in a larger trend of notorious voting obstacles for Ohio students.

The news that they would not be able to cast a provisional ballot traveled through the group of approximately 25 expectant student voters, causing bafflement and confusion. Students who had either not registered since their last housing switch or who had already ordered absentee ballots but wished to vote in person, following last week’s utility bill referendum, were required to use provisional ballots.

It was College sophomore Christine Gentes’ first time at the polls, and she watched the student in front of her receive the last ballot. “I would have gone home if they’d said there’d be no more ballots, but they told us, ‘They’re on their way,’” she said.

Another student, College first-year Ra’Mar Leach, had been waiting for an hour and 45 minutes for his ballot. “I didn’t know what to do when I got here. I thought I could just vote and leave, but they told me to wait.”

Margie Woodrum, the alpha judge poll worker at the site, made an announcement about five minutes later: “We called well in advance that we were starting to run out. I don’t know what happened.”

Woodrum declined to elaborate, busying herself with clearing out the place, closing down the electronic voting machines and ushering students out of the room.

In the library hallway, students met with College senior Colin Koffel, consultant to the OC Democrats, who had been visiting the various Oberlin polling sites all day on the lookout for any mishaps. When he came to pack up supplies and information on the table at the library, he heard about the insufficient number of provisional ballots and came inside to investigate.

Koffel made multiple calls to the Board of Elections, while another poll worker invited the approximately 14 remaining students back into the room. “They basically said they didn’t know anything…. We were getting conflicting information about whether [the students] should fill out ‘authorization to vote’ cards, had to stay or had to leave,” said Koffel.

According to Koffel, some of the poll workers explained that the BoE was in “911 shutdown” due to the weather, implying that they were having trouble delivering ballots or were distracted. “It was all very unclear, we didn’t hear anything conclusive,” he said.

The students milled around waiting for something to happen, while poll workers counted votes and closed down machines, apparently oblivious to their presence. Meanwhile, Koffel called a legal hotline to report the incident. The lawyers later called back and said, “Ballots are on their way.” At around 9 p.m., extra ballots arrived and about 13 students were able to cast votes. 

Director of the BoE from Lorain County Jose Candelario attributed the delay to the weather. “Anybody that was in line at closing in time or who wanted to vote earlier, we issued them a provisional ballot,” said Candelario. “They had to be specifically printed and delivered, [but they all got there].”

Koffel linked the incident to current Ohio voting laws. “This [incident] goes to the whole root of these voter ID laws,” said Koffel.

College sophomore Sam Lewis, co-chair of OC Democrats, agreed. “Had we known [the college utility bill sufficing for residential identification] was going to happen two months ago, we would have transitioned from saying vote absentee to vote normally in the polls.”

Although Koffel and Lewis agreed that turnout in Oberlin was good, many students ended up having to vote provisionally. Many had ordered absentee ballots at the encouragement of get-out-the-vote workers, but then did not send them in. Others were unaware that they needed to re-register with each new college living situation.

Calendario said that the BoE sent more provisional ballots to Oberlin than to any other polling place in the County and in some cases, double. “Over 338 students did not turn their absentee ballots in and then decided to go to the polls to try to vote,” he said.

College senior Anne Hoffman, who had been waiting 15 minutes for the ballots to arrive when she learned that they were completely out, commented that in response to the recent changes, a logical reaction would be an increase in provisional ballots sent to the polls. “It says something about the nature of who the process wants to exclude,” said Hoffman.

Hoffman was frustrated that this was the third time her experience at the polls was unsatisfying. In 2004, she waited in line for five hours to vote. In the 2006 congressional election, her absentee ballot “never arrived,” so she called and reported voter fraud. “I feel really ashamed of the political process right now,” she said.

College senior Erika Dantzig was also suspicious of the system, after unsucessfully requesting a democratic ballot for the third time. The other two were during the 2004 election, one through OPIRG and the other online.

“It makes me wonder if it’s coincidence that it’s so difficult for registered Democrats to vote in Oberlin,” said Dantzig. 

Koffel responded to the idea that the aim of these laws was to avoid voter fraud, saying that the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Coalition on Homelessness & Housing in Ohio looked at the 9,078,728 votes cast in Ohio’s 2002 and 2004 elections — before the voter identification requirements were adopted — and found four instances of voter fraud.

“[Tuesday we] lost more than four votes, which offsets any gain [from the laws].”

The Oberlin polling place was the only one in Lorain County that ran out of provisional ballots.