After months of campaigning, local candidates for elected office have but a matter of hours to make a final push for votes, and they intended to use them.

“I’ll be out all over the county, seeing people,” Pickens County Sheriff David Stone said. “In the evening, we’ll have a little get together out at the Pickens Country Club and watch the results, and hopefully they’ll come out in our favor.”

Stone, 30-year incumbent, is running in Pickens County against challenger Robert Crooks, a veteran investigator for the Clemson Police Department. Stone said he’d spend much of the morning at local breakfast hot spots in locations like Easley, Liberty and Clemson.

Meanwhile, Greg Nowell said he was taking a different approach to the final hours of his campaign for Oconee County Treasurer.

“I’ll be working,” Nowell said. “I might go to the polls at some point and greet some folks, but I’ll be working most of the day. That night I’m planning on being at Pine Street to see the results come in.”

The county government offices located on Pine Street in Walhalla are a main post-election hotspot, as many candidates will be congregating there to get the word straight from the horse’s mouth.

Sen. Thomas Alexander also said he would be at the Pine Street offices to watch the results come in after spending all day in a last ditch effort of campaigning. His opponent, Constitution Party candidate Polly Nicolay will be keeping a low profile, opting to have a more private election party away from the public eye.

“We’re working diligently right now to get the vote out,” Nicolay said. “We’re using some last-minute methods we have that I won’t divulge at this point, but we’re having fun. I think I have an excellent chance of actually winning, but no matter who wins, I believe I’ve won at the personal level. I’ve gotten the message to the people.”

Also working diligently to get out the vote is Ken Campbell, Oconee County Democratic Party Chairman, who said he and dozens of volunteers will be spending Election Day on the phone and gathering data. It’s a far cry from the last presidential election cycle four years ago, when he said there was little networking and even less organization. Today his operation will consist of roughly 100 people. Their efforts will culminate at an election celebration at Mullen’s Irish Pub and Restaurant in Seneca.

“This year we’ve had a truly coordinated campaign,” he said. “I’m pretty fired up to be honest with you.”

Meanwhile, Republican powerhouse, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, has already left the Palmetto State despite being in a contested election for that seat. Spokesman Kevin Bishop said Graham cast an absentee ballot Monday in Walhalla, made a campaign stop in Greenville and then departed to Arizona to join presidential hopeful John McCain.

“He has been asked to introduce McCain after he wins,” Bishop said. “We’re very hopeful that we’ll be introducing the next president of the United States.”

Graham’s departure from South Carolina on Election Day drew the ire of his Democratic challenger, Bob Conley, who has been campaigning in Columbia, Aiken, Horry County and Anderson in the past 24 hours.

"We've been crisscrossing the state and meeting people one-on-one,” Conley said. “Instead of being a valet and bag boy for another senator.”

On Monday afternoon, Conley also encapsulated what most of the candidates, regardless of political affiliation, felt about today’s election: fatigue and confidence.

“I'm tired. This is quite an arduous task," he said of taking on an entrenched GOP incumbent. "But, we have tremendous grassroots support, and I think we will be throwing a retirement party for Lindsey tomorrow night."