Election 2012

Almost 1.9 million Ohioans voted with an absentee ballot in last year's election - a record number for the perennial presidential battleground state.

Secretary of State Jon Husted released reports Wednesday showing that roughly 33 percent of the more than 5.6 million votes cast in the November election were from absentee ballots.  The early ballots accounted for about 30 percent of the overall votes cast in 2008.

Voters in Ohio can cast an absentee ballot early by mail or in person without giving any reason.

The Clark County Commissioners race is finally over. WYSO's Wayne Baker reports that Republican Kyle Koehler has conceded the race to Democrat David Hartley after results of a mandatory recount were released.

Ohio's elections chief says a federal judge's demand to come up with a new order regarding provisional ballots is even worse than a previous court demand.

Lawyers for Secretary of State Jon Husted have complained to a federal appeals court that the judge changed rules for provisional ballots after the election but before the ballots are counted beginning this weekend.

Husted's office asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday to reverse the decision by federal judge Algenon Marbley.

With the election decided, all eyes turn to January, when mandatory across-the-board cuts will be enacted unless Congress makes a deal to solve the budget deficit. Emily McCord is joined by Bill Hershey for this week's PoliticsOhio. He's covered every Ohio Presidential election since 1980 and speaks to McCord about the challenges President Obama has to avoid sequestration cuts and about how changing demographics affects future races and the importance of swing state Ohio

Issue 2 may have failed last night, but one of its backers says the issue behind it isn’t settled. Issue 2 would have taken the authority to draw district maps for state and federal lawmakers out of the hands of elected officials, and it lost by a 2-1 margin, according to unofficial results. But Ohio Democratic Party chair Chris Redfern says he thinks another move to change the map-drawing method will happen soon.