Dispatch... Cordray narrows gap

From the Columbus Dispatch…

Cordray narrowing gap with DeWine as official tallies come in

Franklin County finalized its official vote count from the Nov. 2 election today, and the big winner was Democratic Attorney General Richard Cordray.

That's because Cordray gained a net 6,275 votes after all the outstanding absentee ballots and valid provisional ballots were counted, the most of any statewide candidate. In fact, Cordray received nearly 70 percent of all valid provisional votes cast in the attorney general's race in the county.

Why does that matter? Cordray lost to Republican Mike DeWine after the unofficial state vote totals were released Nov. 2, but the difference was only 67,849 votes statewide.

The Hamilton County Board of Elections also has posted its official vote count, and Cordray picked up a net 3,514 votes there. That means Cordray narrowed the gap with DeWine by nearly 9,800 votes from the official count in Franklin and Hamilton County alone.

That ultimately may not mean anything; not every county has released its official vote count yet, and Franklin and Hamilton accounted for a quarter of the 101,971 provisional ballots cast statewide.

But if Cordray continues to pick up the same percentage of provisional votes in other counties as he did in Franklin and Hamilton or better, it could get interesting. In fact, if Cordray can cut the final official margin to one-quarter of one percent of the total vote cast in the race -- which was 9,324 votes in the unofficial results -- that would trigger an automatic statewide recount.

The final result may not come close to that, of course. But stay tuned as other counties -- especially Cuyahoga, Lucas, Mahoning and other heavily Democrat counties -- start releasing their official tallies.