After enduring nearly two years of the campaign for president, voters will finally have their say on Tuesday.
If you'll be one of them, expect to wait in long lines and wade through rows of partisan volunteers looking to sway every last remaining undecided voter.
Pennsylvania, after all, is where it's at this Election Day.
"I don't think any state in modern times has been the subject of such intense activity," G. Terry Madonna, the director of Franklin & Marshall College's Center for Politics and Public Affairs, said.
Turnout is likely to rival that of the 1960 presidential election between GOP nominee Richard Nixon and Democrat John F. Kennedy, when 88 percent of Pennsylvania's registered voters and more than 70 percent of the voting-age population cast ballots.
Winning this state's 21 electoral votes is considered crucial to both campaigns.
The county's 237 polling locations open at 7 a.m. Tuesday and remain open through 8 p.m. All those in line at 8 p.m. will be able to vote, said Mary Stehman, the county's top elections official.
"We have instructed all the judges of elections at 8 o'clock to stand at the end of the line — even if that line extends two blocks down the road. All those people will be able to vote," said Stehman. "We will accommodate anyone who's standing in line.
"We are prepared," she said.
More than 50,000 polling place workers, state officials, judges and election observers will be working statewide Tuesday to field problems from complaints of voter intimidation to malfunctioning voting machines.
Some voting-rights groups are mounting their largest efforts ever, while many election officials are working frantically to prepare for an expected crush.
The National Weather Service is predicting a chance of drizzle, then rain, mainly after 4 p.m. Otherwise, it will be mostly cloudy with a high near 64.
In addition to president, voters will also decide the race for the county's seat in Congress; choose a successor for retiring state Sen. Gib Armstrong; pick state House members and statewide row officers; and give a thumbs up or thumbs down to a proposed home rule charter, a document that would dramatically restructure county government.
The charter would, among other things, allow county residents to elect five county commissioners instead of just three. They would be elected in 2009 and take office in 2010. The board of commissioners would hire a county administrator — as they currently do — who would oversee policies adopted by the commissioners.
It would also provide for the consolidation of prothonotary, clerk of courts and register of wills into a "clerk of judicial records" position, as well as the elimination of the two part-time jury commissioners. County commissioners would hire professionals to run the clerk of judicial records office.
Home rule also would create a separate office for the controller, and give that person greater financial watchdog powers, as well as give residents the ability — via referendum — to reject a tax increase if it exceeds 7 percent.
Voters will also decide a referendum on whether to make $400 million available for water and sewer system repairs statewide.
Still, the presidential contest is certain to be the main attraction in this hard-fought battleground state. Polls show the race tightening as both candidates spend time and money here.
Republican nominee John McCain flew into the Pittsburgh International Airport this morning for a rally, his third here in the last two days. Democratic nominee Barack Obama's running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, is holding an evening rally tonight in South Philadelphia with Jimmy Rollins and other members of the World Series Champion Phillies.
Obama campaign workers from smaller and less important states in the Electoral College, such as Maryland and Massachusetts, helped to knock on doors in Manheim Township and in Lancaster City on Sunday, according to local Republicans.
The get-out-the-vote effort went to the streets of Lancaster City's southeast area on Saturday afternoon in the form of an impromptu parade.
A noisy caravan of about 30 vehicles wound its way through the largely Hispanic part of the city. The cars were decorated with red, white and blue balloons and Obama signs. They drove through the city beeping horns and get the attention of residents, some of whom came out to cheer and wave their own Obama signs.
The caravan was led by a van with a large loudspeaker and a sign proclaiming "Latinos por Obama." A man inside spoke in Spanish into a microphone — his voice carried loudly into the street — urging Hispanics to cast a ballot for the Democrat on Tuesday.
Of particular interest in Lancaster County will be the margin of victory for the presidential candidate. Local voters haven't sided with a Democrat since 1964, when they chose Lyndon Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater.
But the Democratic registration surge here and the apparent high level of interest in Obama's campaign could make things interesting. At the very least, even if McCain wins the county as expected, Obama's popularity is likely to cut into the GOP candidate's margin.
The campaigns will be watching to see whether McCain can best President Bush's 2004 victory here over U.S. Sen. John Kerry; the Republican incumbent topped the Democrat by 71,263 votes, or about 66 percent to 33 percent. In 2000, Bush beat Democratic nominee Al Gore by 60,932 votes, winning 66 percent to 31 percent.
Since then, however, the Democrats have slowly but surely chiseled away at the county Republican Party's voter registration margins. What was a GOP edge of 2.5-to-1 in 2000 slipped to 2.3-to-1 in 2004 and 1.7-to-1 now.
And what had been a GOP edge of more than 102,000 voters four years ago is now down to 72,057.
There are 326,507 Lancaster County residents registered to vote in Tuesday's election. Of them, 176,179 or 54 percent are Republicans; 104,122 or 32 percent are Democrats; and 46,206 or 14 percent are registered with other parties or have no affiliation.
Both parties leveled accusations against each other in the final hours.
Republicans sought to make hay out of a document published on the county Democratic committee's Web site suggesting the GOP might try to suppress the vote on Tuesday. The memo, authored by attorney Greg Paulson, chairman of the Lancaster city Democrats, cites "rumors" that unnamed Republicans might use any of 11 tactics to intimidate racial minorities, college students and others from voting.
Such allegations, however, have been rampant, and leveled by both parties, in recent weeks.
The local GOP also questioned Paulson's work to help train election workers because he is a partisan operative.
"This is totally unacceptable," Dave Dumeyer, chairman of the Lancaster County Republican Committee, said Sunday. "The conflict of interest in this case should have been noticed."
Paulson said he was "absolutely, positively neutral on everything" when he conducted the 10 training sessions over two weeks in October. He talked to the election workers about how to properly deal with potential problems like challenging voter status.
Paulson said Republicans are "desperate, and this is laughable."
Bill Neff, who is running a write-in campaign for the 13th state Senate district seat, reported finding seven bullet holes in his campaign van. The van had been parked beside the Neptune Diner on North Prince Street.
"Obviously, somebody doesn't like us out there," Neff said.
Staff writer Tom Murse can be reached at tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021.
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