Politics Across the Country: Ohio

At the time the political pot should have been stoked, summer was cooling the campuses of Ohio and soothing its streets which, if not exactly safe, at least in the main were without barricades. Because the deadline for voter registration comes early in Ohio, new voters had to be signed in by September 24. But the registration job is not an easy one. Except for a single day each year in mid-September when all polling places are opened for registration, the prospective voter must travel downtown to the Board of Elections office and appear between the hours of 8:30 AM and 4:30 PM if he wishes to register. Systems of permanent or door-to-door registration are unacceptable to Republicans and even some influential Democrats. When the Democrats controlled the Ohio General Assembly a decade ago, their Cleveland contingent killed a door-to-door measure on the premise that Democrats were in charge in that city, and why take chances with new voters? But this year in Cleveland and the other seven major metropolitan areas, early estimates indicated that only about half the adult population was registered. Spot checks by the Ohio AFL–CIO revealed a worse record among union members. Similar canvasing by Ohio chapters of the A. Philip Randolph Institute produced the same pattern among blacks. The state leadership of the Democratic party, energized by the disarray of the Republicans, seemed ready for the supreme effort. And the candidacies of the two top Democratic contenders, Howard Metzenbaum for the U.S. Senate, and John J. Gilligan for governor, would appear to have provided just the incentive needed to whip up a massive and unified registration campaign. Metzenbaum, in his primary battle, supported the militant student demand for immediate U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia; and Gilligan endeared himself when he led the “peace plank” fight at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Although totals will not be known until shortly before Election Day, all the signs point to a record registration and vote in Ohio.

If new records are set in Ohio, it will not be because candidates, students, labor, Democrats, liberals, and blacks came together to mobilize an effective campaign. Perhaps it was J. Edgar Hoover’s indictment of the National Guard in the Kent State killings, or simply a lack of money, but the vaunted student crusade that was to register an antiwar electorate just never came off. Each of the eight large cities of Ohio was to have a paid student coordinator who would direct student activists in a registration drive, and also work with other groups in the community. The difficult tasks of identifying the unregistered; assigning target areas; keeping the records; driving for the follow-up —all require a degree of planning that never took place. Certain candidates may have turned off the students by imposing dress codes and behavioral standards. It is also true that during the summer, when the tough work had to be done, st...