From the PD

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections agreed to lease 30 optical scan machines to help handle the crush of absentee ballots expected for the Nov. 7 general election.

But the 30 machines, in addition to the 20 the board already owns, won't be enough to count the expected 100,000 absentee paper ballots by 7:30 p.m. election night, as required.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's office is expected to let board officials know this week whether they can start scanning absentee ballots on Saturday, Nov. 4, giving them extra days to finish. Elections director Michael Vu told the board members the ballots' information would be scanned into the computer but not counted until 7:31 p.m. election night.

You want to talk about fraud?

We hate AOL, but let's hope Nix Guy can actually make us pay attention to it again. Good luck!

He also has a nice little piece up on the Foley incident.

From clevescene.com

As Ted Strickland campaigns with the promise of being The Antidote to Republican corruption, one has to wonder about the Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s own greased palms.

After all, his inner circle includes Brian Hicks, former chief of staff to Governor Bob Taft — and a man who doesn’t shy away from accepting gifts in exchange for favors. Last year, Hicks was convicted of failing to disclose discount vacation stays at Tom Noe’s Florida house. Hanging out with the man who drained the state of millions of dollars? How’s Strickland gonna explain that one?

The Hicks connection has largely been ignored by the mainstream press. If elected, will Strickland not owe favors in exchange for the more than $4 million Hicks has helped him raise?

Tonight's debate will be broadcast to a national audience on CSPAN at 7pm EST.

CSPAN can also be viewed online at http://www.c-span.org.

This has nothing to do with Ohio but found it very interesting

From cbssportsline.com

"From the standpoint of a federal taxpayer, why should the federal government subsidize the athletic activities of educational institutions when that subsidy is being used to help pay for escalating coaches' salaries, costly chartered travel and state-of-the-art athletic facilities?" asked Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

Thomas asked the NCAA to justify its tax-exempt status in a letter sent Tuesday to Myles Brand, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He asked for a reply by the end of October.

Read the article, gives you something to think about when rooting for Ohio State.

The Ohio GOP has a nice feature where you click on the county you live in and get a complete slate card. Very nice.