OH-15: Judge orders 1,000 contested ballots counted

Excellent news for Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy; after a protracted legal challenge, federal Judge Algernon Marbley has ruled that 1,000 disputed provisional ballots from Kilroy's stronghold of Franklin County must be counted.

Her opponent Steve Stivers leads by 479 votes, but with nearly 27,000 votes uncounted in Franklin, it's doubtful he can hang on.

Marbley's ruling came in a lawsuit filed last week by supporters of Stivers, who argued the ballots were invalid because they were missing either a printed name or a signature, or the two were interchanged on ballot envelopes.

In his ruling, the judge said the plaintiffs never disputed that the voters who used the provisional ballots were eligible, properly registered and voted in the correct precinct, and that not counting the ballots would disenfranchise legitimate voters. His ruling sides with Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who had said the ballots should be counted because the problems were due to poll worker error.

Punctuating his ruling with a reading of Ohio's voter fraud statute, Marbley called unfounded the plaintiffs' contention that allowing the disputed ballots to be counted would promote fraud. He said election officials have ways to double-check the validity of all the disputed votes.

Union County, part of Stivers' base in this election (it's a rural, Republican-leaning county) has now completed its count. Most of the outstanding vote is in Franklin, and as such, it's looking very good for Kilroy.

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Mary Jo Kilroy for Congress
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