Department of State officials say they're investigating why some Harrisburg residents received outdated voter ID flyers yesterday.

Democratic staffers emailed copies of the mailers late last night. The image they sent of flyers matches the postcards sent by state officials in September, prior to the judge's October injunction.

There had been reports previously of delayed postcards -- which indicate that a photo ID is required to vote, which is incorrect -- being received, but the ones in the Harrisburg area are a particular concern to Democrats because of the neck-to-neck state Senate race here.

The contest to succeed former GOP Sen. Jeffrey Piccola is one of the Senate Democrats' top opportunities to pick up a seat, along with districts in Erie and Pittsburgh's South Hills. 

Department of State spokesman Ron Ruman said this morning that the agency has heard reports of the belated mailers, and that all of its mailers were sent between Sept. 17 and 24.

"We are investigating--these were NOT sent by us at this time," Ruman wrote in an email.

Early Returns will get going in earnest late this afternoon as we dig in for a long election night. Please feel free to comment (below) through the day on your experiences at the polls. You can also email the Post-Gazette at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to alert us to election issues.

New this year: the P-G's sports editor and political junkie Jerry Micco will do an election night chat at 8:30 p.m., 30 minutes after the Pa polls close.

We're still waiting to see the best sites for tracking results but Google's politics & elections site is a good place to start, and here are the NY Times and WashPost sites.

Beware, though, that Twitter could be a nightmare tonight.

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With hours until the polls open, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and auditor general candidate Eugene DePasquale stopped by a union phone bank in Harrisburg late this afternoon to thank volunteers.

Casey, who is fending off a challenge from Republican Tom Smith, told the group that at this point, it's really up to them.

"This is where the election gets won, with the hard work that you're doing to get people out to vote," he said. "The closer the hours get to the polls opening and then the polls closing, you realize the candidates have less and less to do with it really."

Volunteers from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and other unions have been making about 2,000 calls a day, said Elaine Barber, the phone bank coordinator. David Fillman, executive director of AFSCME Council 13, said efforts now are about getting out the vote.

"Really, it's a matter of maybe compensating for some of the votes that aren't going to be around in New Jersey and New York and possibly in some of the Philadelphia area, with some of the electricity still out," he said.

Casey was leading polls this sumer by wide margins before the race appeared to tighten in the fall. But he told reporters he's feeling good going into Election Day.

"Look, it's a tough state," he said. "You always have to be campaigning to the last minute. But I think people know the difference now maybe more so than a month ago. I hesitate to make predictions, other than to say I think we're going to win this."

DePasquale told the volunteers he'd gotten his start in a similar fashion, going door-to-door for his grandfather on the Pittsburgh City Council. DePasquale, a state representative from York County, is running against fellow Rep. John Maher, a Republican from Upper St. Clair, to replace Auditor General Jack Wagner, a Pittsburgh Democrat who is barred by term limits from running again.

After speaking to the phone bank, DePasquale said he feels good about the campaign he's run, including the 90,000 miles he's put on his car. Tomorrow, he said he'll be watching for the numbers out of Philadelphia, where a Democrat running statewide wants to run up the score.

"When you run for auditor general -- this is no secret -- you can't afford Philadelphia television," he said. "That's out of your control how that works out, so we're going to see how the turnout works there."

Since DePasquale -- like Maher -- is also running without major-party opposition for another term in the House, he knows he can expect at least one victory.

"We feel very confident on one, he said. "And we feel supremely confident on the other."

GOP attorney general candidate David Freed got more than $150,000 in financial help from the state Republican Party late last week -- part of the nearly $350,000 he's raised since daily campaign reporting began on Oct. 23.

An analysis of those reports shows that Freed has raised the second-most of any state candidate in that time period, trailing only fellow Republican D. Raja, who is battling Democrat Matt Smith to become the next state senator from Mt. Lebanon.

Raja, who had given his campaign coffers another $377,000 as of early last week, chipped in another $60,000 on Wednesday. 

Freed's reports also list $5,000 from Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, and $8,650 from Freed's father-in-law, LeRoy Zimmerman -- who also was the state's first elected attorney general.

His opponent, Kathleen Kane, comes in fifth statewide with $161,750 in donations for the final reporting period.  She got a boost last week with $55,000 from SEIU's political arm and another $10,000 from AFSCME. 

Also getting from last-minute assistance is state Sen. Elder Vogel, R-Beaver. The state GOP gave him more than $115,000 last week, plus he received another $80,000 from the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

Others getting some final fundraising help:

- Democratic state Senate candidate Rob Teplitz, in a tight Harrisburg-area contest to succeed GOP Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, reported $75,000 from the state AFL-CIO.

- Sherry Stalley, the Republican vying to defeat Johnstown Democratic state Rep. Bryan Barbin, reported $98,000 from the state party and $61,000 from the House Republican Campaign Committee.

Republican committees continue to outpace Democrats on the last-minute spending, a trend we noted last week.

A rough tally of the spelling variations for both state parties (i.e. -- "Republican Party of PA"/"Republican Party of Pennsylvania"/etc), indicates that the state GOP has spent at least $1.4 million in direct contributions to its candidates during the final reporting period, while the state Democrats' total is closer to $300,000.

Union spending also comes in near the top of the list when sorted by contributor, as do several education reform PACs, including Students First.