Nobody cast a more prominent vote Tuesday than Mother Nature.

The ice storm that clobbered Northeast Ohio on Tuesday left voters and poll workers battling the elements as they turned out to cast their ballots in the historic election that had put Ohio in the national spotlight in the battle between senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“We’ve never had weather like this,” said Elections Board member Thomas Smith, who is also chairman of the Lorain County Democratic Party. “We (had) to send snow trucks to the southern portion of the county to make some of the pick-ups.”

Tom Kelley, director of the county Emergency Management Agency, said a total of five county snow plows and three volunteers driving four-wheel drive vehicles were dispatched to help retrieve the ballots, which trickled in throughout the evening after most polls closed at 7:30 p.m.

One precinct in Oberlin stayed open until 8:30 p.m. because the location didn’t have enough provisional ballots for all of the Oberlin College students who showed up to vote. Elections Board Director Jose Candelario Jr. said the problem was the result of students who requested absentee ballots and then showed up at the polls as well.

Board workers – who were prepared for the anticipated blitz of ballots shortly after the polls closed – were surprised when more than two hours later they had nothing to do.

“We’re just waiting for more votes to arrive,” said a board worker during the lull. “We’ve only received a couple bags so far.”

Although the vote-counting process was delayed, Candelario said poll worker safety and security of the ballots took precedence over getting speedy results.

In addition to the slick roads, some of the elderly poll workers who had arrived to their stations at 6:30 a.m. couldn’t carve their way through the ice to get into their cars after the polls closed in the evening, Smith said.

In addition to the treacherous roadways, the board office had its power go out twice in the early evening. Candelario said the outage had no effect on vote tallying.

Candelario said Tuesday’s turnout was moderate during the morning, but picked up during the evening hours. The total number of ballots counted was unavailable early this morning, but approximately 550 residents took advantage of Monday’s unseasonably high temperatures to cast their vote early, and more than 10,300 sent in absentee ballots before Tuesday, Candelario said.

Elections Board member Anthony Giardini, who also is chairman of the Lorain Democratic Party, was one of the three board members who also pitched in to help retrieve votes from around the county. He said except for the weather, the election went off fairly smoothly in the county.

“It took a little longer than usual, but it had to be done that way,” he said.

The county was required to offer a paper optical scan ballots in addition to electronic voting machines this year.

Contact Stephen Szucs at 329-7129 or sszucs@chroniclet.com.

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