Our very partisan Secretary of State has made all kinds of changes to how we vote in the last month or two and has removed 4 or 5 Republican election officials that have disagreed with her. Paper ballots are back in uses in a couple counties.
Cuyahoga, our largest county, is one of them. It is being reported that results will not be known until 3:00 am under the best circumstances.
THIS WILL BE THE STORY next fall. Will we be able to trust an election run by an extreme partisan that has fired or forced out anyone that disagrees with her? The stuff she is doing is pretty extreme; going back to paper ballots, shutting down polling locations for midday ballot pickups, refusing reappoint of Republican board members that disagree with her (no dems just repubs), taking county BOE's that don't agree with her and putting them on administrative oversight, etc. And most of the changes came from directives that she issued in the last few weeks. We are headed for a long night tomorrow and possible a mess in the Fall.
No one outside of Ohio is paying attention to it, but this is a big deal. For better or worse, Ohio determines the president and our SoS is working to destroy the partisan checks and balances that we have in place.
It's hard to imagine a Republican winning the presidency who loses the Buckeye state. This is a story to keep an eye on ...
More immediately, if the paper ballots do, in fact, delay reporting today's election, that certainly could influence the way the news cycle plays the Hillary vs. Obama fight. Please note that the rule is voters may "request" paper ballots if they want them. Stay tuned ...