Football Game Delays Vote Counting; You'll Never Guess Where

No more than 3,500 votes separate U.S. Rep Deborah Pryce and her democratic challenger, Mary Jo Killroy in the Ohio congressional race. There are still 18,000 absentee and provisional ballots to be counted. You'd think they might want to count those as soon as possible ... but they're not.

The soonest they're legally allowed to count them is the 18th. They won't get started until the 19th. Why? Football. The 18th is the day of the Michigan/Ohio State football game that a few people in Ohio might watch, and it takes precedence over trivial matters like a congressional race.

Oh, the county elections director will tell you that football isn't the biggest factor, that his vote counters are overworked, and they deserve a day off. But I think they're just waiting to see who wins the game, and then deciding if they just want to give congressional seat to Jim Tressell. They know they could count on him to be above any kind of corruption.

OSU-Michigan game helps vote counters to rare Saturday off [The Plain Dealer]