Cleveland Voters Talk Jobs, Women's Rights

(The Root) -- As the afternoon dissolved into evening on Election Day, voters streamed through the doors of Caledonia Elementary School in Cleveland Heights, a suburb of Cleveland. Many willingly took a copy of the Democratic slate into the polls, and many marked the top of the ticket for Barack Obama.

They were the beginning of the evening rush that capped a relatively smooth day of voting in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The longest lines were in the early morning, according to campaign workers and observers at several polls. But the biggest complaint was about the length of the ballot, not the length of the lines.

Bianca Wright and Eric Watts voted for the president because of his support for women's rights. "We need someone who stands behind women," Wright said. "We need someone who stands behind the whole country."

Zarjuan Robinson said his support solidified after the debates. Robinson, 22, and his brother, Michael Williams, 18, were voting for the first time. Robinson waited four years for this opportunity: He said he turned 18 the day after the 2008 election.

Watch the video below to see why this group of voters in the key battleground state chose to give their votes to Obama.

This video was produced by Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs, a Cleveland-based journalist and a contributor to The Root.