From a reader:
Jonah,
An Ohio court ordered that counties could scan absentee ballots before today (which is contrary to Ohio law) due to the fact that the absentees were so high in Cuyahoga County. As of yesterday, Cuyahoga (Cleveland) and Franklin (Columbus) Counties had announced that they would scan the ballots yesterday. Cuyahoga typically provides 80,000+ democrat majority and recently Franklin has been democrat also. I suspect that early returns in Ohio will include these numbers, but not include numbers from counties that did not count absentees early.
I voted at 10:00 AM this morning in a suburban Cincinnati precinct that is 85% Republican. In the 2004 election 580 people voted in my precinct. This morning I was ballot 146. I would not consider this a high number for mid morning, but the line was moving very slowly due to the lengthy ballot and some difficulties with filling out the ballot for the optical scan machines (first general election for these machines). There was at least one provisional ballot cast while I was there and one elderly woman who had to ask for an additional ballot two times due to some form of spoilage. With this much trouble in the suburbs, one has to wonder what will be happening with new systems in the inner city precincts here in Hamilton County.