Voter turnout gets off to mixed start

President Bush has been stumping for Republicans.
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS
Early voter turnout was a mixed bag so far this morning at a few polling places in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
Voter turnout in Warren was moderate during the first few hours of voting, said Dan Polivka, an at-large candidate for Warren council who spent the morning visiting polls.
He said he expected turnout to pick up later in the day as people come to vote during their lunch hours or after work.
The mayoral race and tax issues in Warren and Trumbull County will get out the vote, he said.
"Anytime you have a pocketbook issue, one way or another, people come out to vote," he said.
There were no lines this morning at polling places in Warren and Howland. At the First United Methodist Church in Warren, where three precincts vote, poll workers outnumbered voters by 2 to 1.
Voters had been arriving in ones and twos all morning at the Rebecca Williams Community Center, where two Warren precincts vote, said Mamie Hunt, who was handing out campaign literature for mayoral candidate Joe Williams. She put her hopes for a good turnout in the forecast for good weather.
At Liberty's Precinct J at the township administration building, poll workers characterized the turnout as slow.
By 8:15 a.m., only 29 out of 450 registered voters had cast ballots. Incumbent township Trustee Patrick F. Durina is being challenged by political newcomer Jodi K. Stoyak, who has put on a door-to-door campaign.
Thomas S. Conley is vying to become the first black member of the Liberty Board of Education, running against Charles A. Mulidore to fill an unexpired term.
Good turnout
In Girard, poll workers at Precinct 4-A at the First Baptist Church on East Kline Street characterized the turnout by 8:45 a.m. as "constant and steady."
Workers at Precinct 3-D, also at the church, said the turnout was "pretty good," but expected it to pick up at 4 p.m. when voters get out of work.
Girard poll workers attribute the good turnout to a 5.9-mill continuous school levy and the board of education race, where incumbents Jane A. Harris and Jamie R. DeVore are being challenged by Myron A. Esposito and Phil Fisher. State Issue 1 also was attracting voters.
Girard Mayor James J. Melfi said regardless of the outcome of the school levy, the city will not place an issue on the ballot.
Melfi said he believes voters want the city to dig itself out of the "sins" of state-imposed fiscal emergency because of getting involved in projects it couldn't afford. Voters, he added, aren't willing, for now, to bail out the city.
In Mahoning County, turnout was lighter than average at the Mahoning United Methodist Church on Mahoning Avenue in Youngstown.
Nearby, turnout was higher than average at Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church on North Belle Vista Avenue.
There are elections for city council seats, council presidency and many candidates running for school board seats in Youngstown.
In Austintown, an average number of voters had turned out by 9:30 a.m. at the polling place at the township offices. Meanwhile, turnout was light at polling places at Watson Elementary and Frank Ohl Middle schools on Idaho Road. There are high-profile votes for township trustees and several school levies on the ballot in Austintown.
National races
Elsewhere in the nation, Mayor John Street's re-election campaign seemed lackluster -- until his office was bugged by the FBI. Then he opened up a lead over Republican Sam Katz, riding a wave of public skepticism about the federal corruption probe.
In one of dozens of mayoral races around the country, voters today were to decide whether to re-elect the Democratic mayor or install the businessman he narrowly beat four years ago.
The off-year elections also featured gubernatorial contests in Kentucky and Mississippi, legislative races in three states and a host of ballot items ranging from gambling issues to mass transit.
In Mississippi, President Bush stumped over the weekend for influential Republican lobbyist Haley Barbour, who was trying to unseat Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove.
Bush also campaigned in Kentucky for U.S. Rep. Ernie Fletcher, who was fighting with Democratic Attorney General Ben Chandler to become the successor to Gov. Paul Patton, a Democrat whose final term was roiled by an infidelity scandal.
Both races were being closely watched for signals that Bush will be either vulnerable or tough to beat in 2004. In Louisiana, voters go to the polls to select a new governor Nov. 15 because GOP Gov. Mike Foster is term-limited.
Fletcher enjoyed an apparent lead in recent polls, while the Mississippi race was neck and neck. Dual victories by Republicans may tell of further erosion of Democratic power in the once "solid South."
Mississippi has not elected a Republican governor since 1967, but Musgrove has downplayed party affiliation in trying to beat back Barbour's challenge. Instead, he has called himself independent and conservative and criticized Barbour for being too cozy with Washington special interest groups.
Federal authorities in Philadelphia have refused to say what the probe in that city is about, but for a month, voters have read about agents seizing files related to city contracts, raids on the offices of two Street supporters and the seizure of handheld computers the mayor uses for e-mail.
Rather than doom Street's campaign, the news seemed to give it new life. He has climbed steadily in the polls since Oct. 7, when police discovered the listening devices during a routine security sweep at city hall.
In a city where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, Street has made anti-Bush rhetoric a staple of both his campaign and his public defense against the FBI.
Democrats rallied around him, claiming the investigation was an attempt by the Bush administration to disrupt the election. Black leaders also claimed that the FBI unfairly targeted Street because of his race; he is Philadelphia's second black mayor.
Meanwhile, his opponent, Republican businessman Sam Katz, has had to deal with harassment by union activists, an incident in which a person tossed what appeared to be an unlit firebomb into a campaign office and a former employee's claim that the candidate embezzled money from a private business venture.
Katz has campaigned on promises to cut city taxes and end cronyism at city hall. The race is a rematch of 1999, when Street beat Katz by fewer than 10,000 votes out of more than 430,000 cast. That fight was resolved on racial lines, when all but a few of the city's black neighborhoods voted for Street.