Voters in and around Oxford cast votes for Trump, Harris and local candidates

When David Howard prepared to cast his vote today, he didn't head straight to his polling location at Talawanda Middle School. Instead, he went to Oxford Seniors.

For years, Oxford Seniors has offered an election day shuttle service to older voters in Oxford. Howard has been voting for decades, but he only moved from Hamilton to Oxford three years ago, so this year marks his first presidential election using the shuttle service to get to the polls.

Several issues were top of mind for Howard as he cast his vote for former President Donald Trump, including the economy, undocumented immigration and foreign policy. Howard said he thought the war between Israel and Hamas would be handled better under a Republican president, and he pointed to high numbers of illegal border crossings under President Joe Biden as a key reason he doesn't support Vice President Kamala Harris.

"I just want the country to come together and not be divided like it is right now," Howard said. "[Trump] is unpopular because he speaks the truth, I think. [Biden and Harris] opened that border."

Howard also voted for Republican Bernie Moreno in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, saying incumbent Sherrod Brown, who has held his seat since 2007, should be subject to term limits.

More than 60,000 voters across Butler County including Howard had cast their ballots on Election Day as of 2:30 p.m., five hours before polls will close. That's in addition to the more than 60,000 who voted early and the 27,000 who voted using absentee ballots. Overall, turnout stood at 59.5% of registered voters in the early afternoon, compared to the overall turnout of 73% in the county during the 2020 presidential election.

Chris Quimby has been a driver for Oxford Seniors for 17 years and helps with the organization's Election Day shuttle service. She said it hasn't seen as much use since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when mail-in voting became more popular.

Quimby doesn't talk politics or religion with her passengers, but she said she could feel the stress from voters this morning.

"I have noticed a lot of anxiety between what is pushed on TV, what's drilled into your head from phone calls, emails, text," Quimby said. This year, campaign spending for advertisements surpassed $10 billion, according to reporting from NPR.

Ellen Price, a retired Miami University faculty member, handed out Yes on Issue 1 pamphlets to voters at Talawanda Middle School from 9-11 a.m. Issue 1, Ohio's only statewide ballot initiative this year, would overhaul the state redistricting process and create a citizen redistricting commission. Democrats broadly support the measure, while the Ohio Republican party is opposed.

"The distribution of the legislature should reflect the distribution of the voters," Price said, "and with gerrymandering, it does not."

The ballot language for Issue 1, approved by Republicans along party lines on the Ohio Ballot Board, states that the amendment would "repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering" and that the citizen commission would be "required to gerrymander" the state legislative maps. Issue 1 supporters have argued that the ballot language is intentionally misleading, a sentiment Price shared.

In Reily Township, volunteer Margarette Beckwith passed out flyers listing the Democratic candidates to interested voters. She's volunteered in Reily Township during elections before and said the turnout had been higher than the other elections she's worked at.

"You see so many signs, particularly for Trump, and I think that this outlying area maybe is a little bit leaning more toward the Republicans," Beckwith said. She personally voted early so she would have time to volunteer, as did Price.

Barb Seeley, a Reily Township resident for the past 25 years, cast her ballot for the Republican candidates, but the presidency wasn't her biggest motivating race. In the 47th District of Ohio's State House, two pastors, Democrat Vanessa Cummings and Republican Diane Mullins, are running against each other. Seeley knows Mullins personally and was excited to vote for her.

"She just very, very religious," Seeley said. "She' wants people to treat people well, help them out, do things for them and assist them always. She's not nasty or anything else like that."

Seeley said she hasn't been listening to a lot of television in the past few years because she's fed up with the negativity of the news cycle. Usually, she stays up late to watch the election results roll in on election night, but she gets up at 5 a.m. each morning and wasn't sure if she'd stay up late this year.

Cindy, an Oxford voter who asked to be identified by first name only, voted for Harris along with her husband at Talawanda Middle School. She said they were nervous this summer after Biden's disastrous debate performance, but after he dropped out, she was excited to support Harris.

Like Seeley, Cindy said she and her husband are trying not to watch too much TV to limit their stress during this election cycle. She voted yes on Issue 1 and on Issue 2, a local ballot initiative which would create a levy to increase funding for the Oxford Fire Department.

"You hear the sirens all the time, and they need more help," Cindy said.

Oxford resident James Pittman cast his ballot for Harris at the middle school, as well. Pittman has been voting for Democrats for "quite a few years," he said, and he's ready for a post-Trump political landscape.

"[I'm hoping] that Trump isn't gonna win, that it all ends," Pittman said. "Its important uniting everybody, as opposed to making up stories."