Big voter turnout forecast

By Charles S. Johnson - 11/04/2008

HELENA — The 2008 election is all over but the voting and the counting, and more than 175,000 Montanans have already cast their ballots early.

The rest of us will go to the polls today and decide on which presidential candidate will get Montana's three electoral votes. Voters also will pick a U.S. senator and congressman and governor, along with a host of state and local officials, including legislators, and ballot issues.

The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., except in some polling places with fewer than 400 voters that are allowed to open at noon, said Bowen Greenwood, spokesman for Secretary of State Brad Johnson.

If you're not registered yet, you can still vote. (See story below.) As of Sunday night, 175,054 early votes had already been cast, out of a total of 202,563 Montanans who requested them, Greenwood said.

By Monday morning, 666,532 Montanans had registered to vote, or about 32,000 less than the record 698,260 registered for the 2000 general election.

Johnson is predicting Montana's voter turnout to top 70 percent.

"This is going to be a great election," Greenwood said. "The interest level is really high." Spokesmen for both major Montana political parties were hopeful about their candidates' chances.

"We are cautiously optimistic about the races," said Kevin O'Brien of the Montana Democratic Party. "We've registered record numbers of new voters, identified our supporters and we have a plan in place to turn out our voters. We think that's what it's going to take to win. Right now, we're turning out our folks with tens of thousands of volunteers." "It comes down to the fact that our candidates are the candidates of rural Montana values," said Bridger Pierce of the Montana Republican Party. "We're optimistic. Our priorities have always been taking control of both sides of the state Legislature and of the state Land Board. We're very confident we have the energy, the resources and the candidates to do that." Here, in alphabetical order by race, is a quick recap of the statewide races and issues on the ballot: