Election day in the US is still more than one month away, but many voters in the battleground state of Ohio started casting their ballots this week.
The campaigns of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have been targeting 'early voters' with millions of dollars in TV and radio ads, direct mail literature and even automated phone calls.
Ohio's unusual election law allows people to register and vote at the same time this week only.
Other states allow voters to cast their ballot 'absentee', which is generally done via the post.
This new electoral calendar takes away some of the influence of the debates, three of which have yet to occur. Those showdowns give candidates a chance to close the deal with voters, which has yet to happen based on the latest tight polls.
Vice presidential nominees Sarah Palin and Joe Biden square off this Friday in a highly-anticipated debate between a national political novice and Washington veteran (watch it Friday 2am at RTÉ.ie/live or on-demand at RTÉ.ie/USElection).
At stake in Ohio: 20 electoral votes — perhaps, the presidency itself. Sen McCain has been leading slightly in most state polls, even though Sen Obama has taken a slight edge in national polls.
However, the US electoral college system does not give any weight to the national vote total, as the electors are decided state-by-state.
Websites tracking state polls like electoral-vote.com show Sen Obama still has a slight edge in electoral votes
In all, 270 electoral votes are needed for victory.
Ohio is crucial to Sen McCain's electoral strategy. President George W Bush narrowly won the state and a loss for Mr McCain here would be very difficult to make up with victories elsewhere.
Every factor is at play in Ohio. Thus, every question will be tested.
Among them: Can Republican McCain overcome his links to the deeply unpopular President Bush and a weakened state party and prevail in a state that suffered large losses of manufacturing jobs and large numbers of Iraq war deaths?
Can Democrat Obama overcome voter concerns about his voting record and race among the many blue-collar workers in this culturally conservative, deeply divided state?
Sen Obama was beaten in Ohio by Sen Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary: She carried 83 of 88 counties as white, working-class voters flocked to her economic populist message.
Therefore, Mr Obama is copying Ohio's leading Democrats, Governor Ted Strickland and Senator Sherrod Brown, who went into Republican areas and boosted turnout among swing voters and Democrats.
'Democrats too often have forgotten about places like this,' said former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus, a supporter or Sen Obama who recently met with some two dozen rural voters in London in western Ohio.
He added: 'They have forgotten about small-town America, rural America, agricultural America and taken it for granted that we're going to vote the other way.'
Linda Ward, a nurse from western Ohio, has tried to persuade others to take a critical look at Sen McCain but has not had much luck.
'Not my neighbors, not my friends. This area is a very conservative one,' she said.
Voters like Diane Ferguson, a nursing home director in southeast Ohio, typify Sen Obama's troubles. She says she likes Mr Obama but is not sure she can vote for him. She is troubled by his early resistance to wearing a flag pin, his race and a resume that looks thin to her.
'It's a hard decision,' she said. 'I don't know if we're ready for that one.'
Aware of such scepticism, Sen Obama's campaign is using its financial and organisational muscle to boost turnout among his core supporters — blacks and the youth. His campaign long planned for this early voting period and organised car pools from college campuses to early voting sites across the state.
Independent groups seeking to increase poor and minority participation also transported voters from places like homeless shelters, halfway houses and soup kitchens.
Outside the Franklin County Veterans Memorial in Columbus, Republican lawyers apparently concerned about voter fraud snapped photographs of vehicle licence plates.
On Monday, the state Supreme Court and two federal judges upheld the ruling by Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner that allows new voters to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day from Tuesday through 6 October.
Republicans argued that Ohio law requires voters to be registered for 30 days before they cast an absentee ballot.
Four years ago, it was Democratic members of Congress who were claiming voter fraud in Ohio after lines at polling places were often two hours longer in poor, minority districts.
