Democrat wins central Ohio congressional race

COLUMBUS (AP) — Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy won a hotly contested central Ohio congressional race by a little more than 2,000 votes Sunday after elections officials tallied provisional ballots in the district’s largest county.

Kilroy’s victory over Republican Steve Stivers put the 15th Congressional District into Democratic hands after the retirement from Congress of U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce, a Republican.

Franklin County elections officials released unofficial results Sunday that showed Kilroy with a margin of victory of 2,311 votes out of roughly 300,000 cast, enough to avoid an automatic recount. Kilroy went into the counting of about 24,000 provisional ballots — about 40 percent of them cast in the congressional district — down by 594 votes.

“I am very proud to serve our community as the next congresswoman from central Ohio,” Kilroy said in a statement. “In Washington, I will work together with both Democrats, Republicans and president-elect Obama to tackle the real problems that our community faces.”

With Kilroy’s victory, Democrats will hold 256 seats in the House, compared with 177 Republicans. Two House races in Virginia and Louisiana are still up in the air.

The Ohio congressional delegation now consists of 10 Democrats and eight Republicans.

Kilroy, a Franklin County commissioner, narrowly lost election to the congressional seat in 2006, when she came within fewer than 2,000 votes of unseating Pryce. That race required a re-count.

Stivers conceded the race to Kilroy shortly after the results were released Sunday.

“While I am extremely proud of the race I ran, ultimately, is was not enough,” Stivers said. “I have called Commissioner Kilroy to congratulate her for her hard-fought victory, and I wish her well in Washington.”

The counting of the provisional ballots went forward after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Friday that 1,000 of the ballots under dispute must be thrown out because of voter error. In a 4-2 decision, the court struck down Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s directive that said the votes should be counted.

Justices said Brunner improperly instructed county elections officials to apply conflicting standards to election law by ruling that the votes should be counted, even though the envelopes failed to comply with legal guidelines set out before Nov. 4.

The disputed ballots contained varying errors on the outer envelope, such as lacking either a signature or a name. Others had the signature or name written in the incorrect space.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati had ruled Nov. 25 that the state high court should rule on the issue, vacating a ruling by U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley a week earlier in favor of counting the ballots.

The counting of the Franklin County provisional ballots gave Ohio Democrats two additional victories Sunday. Marian Harris defeated Republican Brad Lewis by 735 votes in the 19th Ohio House district, and Nancy Garland defeated incumbent Republican Jim McGregor by 1,652 votes in the 20th House District. Democrats now control 53 seats in the 99-member Ohio House, an overall pickup of seven seats.