COLUMBUS — Ohioans responded yesterday to a call for action, a call for responsibility and a call for participation in what has been the most highly anticipated election on a national and state level in recent memory.

In fact, their response was so overwhelmingly large, we still don’t know the final numbers.

As of midnight last night, voter turnout across the state was estimated by the Secretary of State’s office at 73 percent. At press time three-fourths of all precincts had been reported, with a total of 4.285 million participants so far. The actual number of people estimated to have voted in Ohio is 5.8 million, according to Dana Walch, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Secretary of State’s Office.

In the 2000 election, 63 percent of Ohio voters made it out to the polls..

Even though election offices around the state tried to prepare themselves for the 7.98 million Ohio citizens who were registered, yesterday’s turnout still overwhelmed the polls, to the point of lines stretching outdoors into poll place parking lots.

In order to combat discouragement for those still waiting to vote past 8:00 p.m. a federal judge ordered the Franklin and Knox County boards of elections to provide paper ballots or any other form of voting to help process people still remaining in long lines.

This ruling, put into effect 30 minutes after it was released at 8:15 p.m., also aided those voting in Warren County near Cincinnati, where people were still waiting in line at 11:30 last night. The lawyers from the Franklin Board of Elections and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell objected to the ruling and have attempted to file an immediate appeal, saying any votes not cast on a regular electronic machines would be illegal.