DAVID SKOLNICK \ Politics Tiring campaign season nets a few surprises

It's been a truly exhausting campaign year, and not only for the candidates.
Ohio residents spent the past several months getting bombarded by TV and radio commercials to the point of over-saturation.
Thankfully there won't be a long drawn-out recount in Ohio, as there was in Florida in 2000. But Ohio's 88 county boards of elections have plenty of provisional ballots to count. While those votes won't change the outcome of the presidential election, it could affect lower-ticket races and issues.
The elections boards in Mahoning and Mercer counties certainly had a series of problems with the electronic voting systems. Elections officials in both counties should breathe a sigh of relief that high-priced, big-city attorneys won't be called in for recounts in the presidential election.
Officials at both elections boards insist that every vote cast by residents in their counties were properly counted. I have no reason to dispute that. But teams of Bush-Cheney or Kerry-Edwards campaign attorneys certainly would have had reasons to question that claim.
Most of the problems with the Mahoning machines were caused by human error. But some of the machines malfunctioned or had minor problems that could have caused voter confusion.
In Mercer County, a computer software glitch caused dozens of touch-screen voting machines to be rendered ineffective. Some Mercer voters were given paper ballots.
Both counties' problems occurred despite additional training for poll workers and extensive checks of electronic voting machines.
No voting system is perfect. But if election officials in Mahoning and Mercer thought electronic voting machines were the answer to their problems, they were mistaken.
Both boards made decisions a few years ago to get away from their old systems -- paper ballots counted by optical scanners in Mahoning, and lever machines in Mercer. The reason was high-tech electronic voting machines would make elections easier and more accurate. I can't speak to being more accurate, but the new systems in the two counties sure haven't been easier.
There were a few surprises Tuesday on the local front.
As I wrote in an Aug. 20 column, Mahoning County officials made a huge mistake in seeking a 0.5 percent continuous sales tax instead of seeking the renewal of the sales tax for another five years. It was a gamble, particularly after voters rejected a renewal of the tax in March.
The reasoning was completely unsound, and the county faces fiscal disaster, and massive layoffs. But county officials have no one to blame but themselves for the tactical blunder.
Most incumbents won re-election, but there were two surprises.
The first surprise was the victory of Republican Randy Law over two-term state Rep. Dan Sferra, a Democrat, in the Ohio 64th House District.
I made several cracks about Law, particularly in a pair of March columns. In one, I wrote Law "has been a candidate so many times I've lost count, and he's never won." This was Law's fourth attempt to be elected, and he had failed in each attempt, including losing to Sferra two years ago. Trumbull GOP Chairman Craig Bonar had said Law was a legitimate candidate months ago, something I dismissed out of hand. Bonar was right, and I was wrong.
The House Republican Caucus pumped $100,000 into Law's campaign during its final days. Sferra, who has lived off his name recognition for years, did little in this Ohio House campaign, as he did during his other two House races. Sferra was the only incumbent Democrat in the Ohio House to lose Tuesday.
While fellow state legislators from Trumbull County bemoaned Sferra's loss, they should embrace Law because a Republican in a Republican-controlled state Legislature may actually be able to bring a few extra bucks to the area.
The second surprise was the respectable showing of Democrat Frank Rayl Jr. in the 1st Ohio House District race against state Rep. Charles Blasdel. Blasdel won by less than 500 votes in a district that takes in all of Columbiana County.
Blasdel is considered a rising star in the Ohio Republican Party and is expected to be the party's nominee in 2006 for the 6th Congressional District if U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic incumbent, vacates it to run for governor. Yet Blasdel, who acknowledged he should have run a more aggressive campaign, barely beat a political newcomer.