THE MORNING AFTER -- CLEVELAND LEGISLATIVE RACES UP IN THE AIR

At this moment (8:43 am) the BOE website is showing 1,131 precincts counted out of 1,435, which leaves a fifth of the county's polling places in some unexplained kind of limbo. The count hasn't changed since 7:36, so maybe the machines have done everything they can do and we're down to the precincts that need partial hand counts. Of course all the 17,000 absentee ballots are going to be hand-counted because the optical scanners can't be trusted.

What a mess.

There are still a hundred precincts uncounted in Ohio Senate 21, but it looks like Shirley Smith (currently State Representative, District 10) has a comfortable lead over Annie Key (State Representative, District 11). The races for the seats they're leaving are much closer. In Ohio House 10, with 30 of 104 precincts still out, Nelson Cintron has an 18-vote lead over Bill Newsome and a 57-vote lead over Eugene Miller. In Ohio House 11, Key's aide Sandra Williams has a slightly more comfortable 253-vote edge over T.J. Dow, but 17 out of 84 precincts are missing.

Meanwhile, in Ohio House 14, with 18 out of 87 precincts uncounted, John Marshall teacher Bill Ritter leads Cleveland Tenants Organization director Mike Foley by only 139 votes. (This is the vacancy created by Dale Miller's appointment to the Senate, so the winner gets seated immediately.)

While these are nominally primary races, the winners will face weak or token GOP opponents in November, so for all practical purposes we're waiting to see who's going to represent most of the city in Columbus next year...

which makes it all the more frustrating that our BOE can't count our freaking votes.

2:00 PM UPDATE: They're up to 1,284 precincts counted. That means 151 still haven't been. It looks like Sandra Williams in District 11 has her win, but I'd say 10 (Cintron vs. Newsome) and 14 (Ritter vs. Foley) are still up for grabs.

Anthony Fossaceca has a first person account of the Garden Valley debacle at BFD. The problem that held up the statewide vote count for two hours? Three-prong plugs.

2:45 PM UPDATE: 1,341 precincts counted, not including absentees. The race in Ohio House 10 is now between Eugene Miller (912 votes) and Bill Newsome (861 votes), with Nelson Cintron falling to a weak third place. In Ohio House 14, Ritter leads Foley by 84 votes with eight precincts (and the absentees) to go.