BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
You think the Reds stadium debate is confusing now. Wait until you get into the voting booth.
The wording of the stadium issue -- Issue 11 -- has tripped up some Hamilton County residents who have voted by absentee ballot, said Bruce Taylor, Hamilton County Board of Elections director.
Issue 11 asks voters to create a county charter. The charter would require that any new Reds ballpark be built at Broadway and Reading Road, the site known as Broadway Commons.
A "yes" vote is an endorsement for Broadway Commons. It's also a vote to try to undo the deal the county and Reds made to build a ballpark on the riverfront.
Betty Albers of Madeira voted absentee. "If I didn't have that ballot in front of me to look through it to go over it and over it . . . I just don't think any of it is very clear," she said.
Mrs. Albers said her daughters have looked at the ballot language to try to understand what they'll be voting on Tuesday.
"I can see where it would be confusing for anybody," she said.
The pro-riverfront Move Greater Cincinnati Forward campaign was worried enough about voter confusion to tape a commercial that states five times that a "no" vote is a vote for the riverfront.
That group wants the stadium built just west of the Crown, at the site known as Baseball on Main or the "Wedge."
The Reds favor the riverfront site, but team officials haven't said what the Reds will do if Issue 11 wins.
