Dems Outnumber GOP in Key Ohio County

By Joby Warrick
In Ohio, early and absentee balloting ended after midnight today, just hours before the polls opened, and there were positive signs for Democrats in at least one key county.

Officials in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, said that Democrats cast more than twice as many ballots as Republicans -- 87,829 Democratic votes compared with 40,008 by registered members of the GOP. The county Board of Elections also received more than 90,000 early ballots from independents, said board spokesman Ben Piscitelli. Early voting is expected to account for about a third of the total votes cast.

Franklin County is Ohio's second-largest county and has increasingly trended Democratic in recent years. The county favored Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004, a year in which President Bush narrowly won the state's electoral votes.