NE OHIO IS READY FOR ITS CLOSEUP

NE OHIO IS READY FOR ITS CLOSEUP: "Cameras in search of controversy.
Scores of amateur and professional videographers, documentarians, filmmakers and self-appointed election watchdogs raced from polling place to polling place Tuesday in Cuyahoga County on the lookout for voting irregularities.

A sizable contingent of international reporters also stalked Greater Cleveland, betting that if something bad was going to happen to the ballots, it would happen here.

Mixed in with the media were volunteers many of them partisan who worked to bring out the vote and get voters to the polls through a steady rain.

Filmmaker Michael Moore, whose movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" scorched the Bush White House, paid for a busload of New York City videographers to travel to Cleveland to film any problems.

Moore, who had just flown in from Florida on a chartered jet, met Tuesday afternoon with some of those videographers in an East Side storefront rented by ACORN, a nonprofit group that has been registering low-income and minority voters.

Moore, who was joined by actress/comedienne Roseanne Barr, said there had been few reports of trouble in either state, but promised the cameras would roll if problems developed.

"This is my contribution as a citizen to make sure that Ohio does not become this year's Florida," he said. "If anyone tries to steal the election, it won't be done in the dark this time."

Moore then took his entourage to Woodbury Elementary School in Shaker Heights, which that morning had reported a three-hour wait to cast ballots. "