Today is Super Tuesday, and some local experts expect a big voter turnout.
“We've got over 53,000 (registered) people voting if they turn out to vote,” said Houston County Probate Judge Luke Cooley. “I think that with all the media coverage, we could have a really good day, which for us would be about 50 percent turnout. I would like to see us set some records.”

Troy University-Dothan political science professor Richard Martin agreed.
“I expect a great turnout, because there are a lot of precedents here,” Martin said.
Those precedents include the ethnic and sexual diversity among the candidates as well as the sheer numbers.

“This election has the first black candidate with a real chance of winning as well as the first time there’s a woman running for president with a serious possibility of winning,” Martin said. “For the Republicans, this seems to be the largest number of candidates fielded for a national office in quite some time.”

 According to Cooley, the early timing of the election could play an indirect role in the voter turnout.
“Alabama is significant, a feeder into the system,” Cooley said. “I think that’s going to make people come out.”

While both Martin and Cooley project big turnouts today, Cooley said the county didn’t experience a surge in voter registration for this election.
“If anything, we have not had the surge that local candidates will (get). The major presidential candidates, to my knowledge, have not been in our area,” Cooley said.

Various pre-election polls show Arizona Sen. John McCain holding a seven-percentage-point lead in Alabama over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee among Republicans, while the Democratic race between Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is virtually a dead heat.
“The Democratic race in Alabama could really go either way, but I’m thinking the state will lean slightly more toward Obama,” Martin said.

“First of all, there is the pure ethnic momentum here. Jesse Jackson received a lot of support here (in 1988, when he won the state presidential primary), and now we have someone even more possible as a winner,” he said. “Some sectors have a growing concern that the same families are occupying the White House, so that could hurt Clinton.”

In the Republican race, Martin said McCain is indeed the frontrunner in the state, but cautions the race is still a close one.
“McCain has a lot of initiative built up, and he’s moving reallly well,” Martin said. “He’s been well organized, and I think he’s been able to take advantage of the relative inexperience of his opponents on a national level. But it’s going to be a close race”
According to Cooley, the race is still wide open.

“The more I talk to people, the more I realize people are undecided. A lot of people are going to show up to the poll, take their pencil out and have to make that decision right then,” Cooley said. “Therefore, none of the pre-polls are going to be worth a toot.”