Mar. 4, Feature - As Ohio heads to the polls today, all eyes will be watching.

Pictures of long lines, people being turned away, and discrepancies in results are all images of 2004 much to the behest, reports reveal, of then Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell who also served as the Bush Cheney Ohio campaign chair.

The new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, was elected in 2007 on a message of transparent and accessible elections.

Today is her first real test.

"The one thing I can say about Ohio's election officials is that they understand that no matter what an election has to happen and they are very experienced with dealing with quick changes in an environment they can turn on a dime. We've done... a lot of things that aren't really glitzy but are very important infrastructure building for a good solid election system."

Brunner has made a whole host of changes that she says offer more checks and balances on the system… including implementing new ways the ballots are counted, conducting enhanced poll worker training, providing paper ballots to people who request them, and switching out electronic voting machines to paper ballots in the largest county Cuyahoga County.

Michelle Lawrence Jawando, National Campaign Manager for Election Protection for People for the American Way is working to ensure full and easy access to the polls for Ohioans. She says she isn't happy with every election related decision but that the tide seems to have turned since 2004.

"Secretary of State has made courageous moves. She's moving in the right direction in terms of people who's even open to hear the needs of the community and what are some of our concerns. So we are applauding her... "

Cuyahoga county has more than million registered voters. It encompasses Cleveland, it's heavily Democratic, and has a large African American population. This is where many of Ohio's voting problems happened in 2004.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections was jam packed Monday with people participating in early voting. Although the process took people up to an hour and a half because of long lines and filling out absentee voting forms, voters said the process went smoothly.

Brunner hopes heavy early voting will help reduce any possible problems on voting day.

But people who vote absentee, which is expected to be around 10 percent of voters, will not have their votes counted for ten days.