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Down 16% overall, down from 54,340 in 2008 to 45,337 this year-- down 9,007 or 16%. And most of the decline came from Democratic voters. The numbers show a huge increase in GOP voters here: Democrats: 127,741 53.36% or 89% of 2008 Republicans: 47,091 19.67% or 138% of 2008 Other: 64,544 26.96 or 78% of 2008 Total: 239,376 or 84% of 2008 Compare this with the 2008 results: Obama: 458,422 69.05% McCain: 199,880 30.11% Total difference: 258,242 If GOP voting is up 38% in just the early voting and the Republicans are better prepared for election day, they could narrow...

After visiting victims of Isaac in Louisiana, Mitt Romney swept into Cincinnati to campaign before a huge crowd with Speaker John Boehner even as Paul Ryan campaigned at the season opener between the Ohio State and his alma mater Miami University. (Ryan's Redhawks lost to the Bucks as expected, but many Redhawk alums are Ohio State fans, and if you are going to lose a game, lose the first game of the Urban Nation era.) The invasion of the Buckeye State by Romney/Ryan is going to intensify for all the reasons noted in Sunday's lead story in The New York...

WASHINGTON - A year ago, an activist group from the Seattle area gave Howard Dean (news - web sites) a thin, golden statue of a backbone. The Oscar-like award honored the former Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont governor for standing up against the Iraq (news - web sites) war and other Bush administration policies. Now, as Dean settles into his new role as head of the Democratic Party, that golden spine has come to represent, for many liberal Democrats, Dean's potential to develop a tougher, take-no-prisoners attitude among the party faithful. "There's no gut-check required for Dean. Dean just needs...

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on Voter Rights, Faulty Electronic Voting Machines, Voter Fraud and GOP Voter Challenges Ohio is a key swing state that ended up deciding the outcome of the 2004 election. But the state was riddled with voting problems, ranging from breakdowns in electronic voting machines to accusations of widespread voter disenfranchisement. We speak to Democrat Jennifer Brunner, who was elected Secretary of State of Ohio in November 2006. [includes rush transcript]

ANDERSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt can't seem to outrun controversy. The freshman congresswoman is facing a complaint about the truthfulness of her education and her endorsements. The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, or COAST, has endorsed Schmidt's opponent in the GOP primary, Bob McEwen. The group claims that some of Schmidt's claimed endorsements are bogus, and instead of two bachelor degrees as stated on various biographical material, she has one. "If it was one incident, I might think there was some merit in letting it go," COAST's Jim Urling said. "But we've got a very...

A headline on the UK’s Guardian today reads, “Age cannot wither him,” referring to Gore Vidal. The author, Emma Brockes, pays homage at the feet of Vidal, praising him as an “aristocrat, intellectual and prolific novelist, playwright, and essayist,” flattering “his ongoing radicalism,” and gleefully exclaiming that he “is as outspoken as ever.” But Vidal’s left-wing hubris and insanity does not completely escape the awe-struck Brockes… sort of. Brockes interviewed Vidal at his “grand old palazzo” in Italy. She notes that Vidal just sold this palace for “£9.5m” ($17,173,147.00) so that he could move to another house he owns in...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - This battleground state on Monday certified President Bush (news - web sites)'s 119,000-vote victory over John Kerry (news - web sites), even as the Kerry campaign and third-party candidates prepared to demand a statewide recount. The president won Ohio with 2.86 million votes, or 51 percent, to Kerry's 2.74 million votes, or 49 percent. The 118,775-vote lead was closer than the unofficial election night margin of 136,000, but not enough to trigger a mandatory recount. Absentee ballots and provisional votes counted after election night made most of the difference. "This was an election where you have some...

Go to www.franklincountyohio.gov. Go to the election results. One district (Gahanna 1-B) shows Bush getting more votes than total votes cast in every other race. Each race is showing approx. 600 votes. Bush alone got more than 4000.

The Franklin County Board of elections has posted a PDF file showing the precinct totals in the county. One of the precincts is clearly in error, Gahanna 1B, which lists Bush with 4258 votes, to Kerry's 260. No precinct has that many voters, and in fact the "public precinct count" for that precinct (number of voters who entered a voting booth) is listed as only 638. So Bush was given about 4000 spurious votes in that precinct. I sent an email to the news editor of the Columbus Dispatch and got a reply saying that the Dispatch staff noticed the...