Early voters continue to be out in force
Early voters were once again lining up at county boards of elections throughout Ohio this morning. In Cuyahoga County, voters were wrapped around the downtown Cleveland building when the polls opened at 8, and the line continued to build slowly and steadily throughout the morning.  A deejay even set up to keep people occupied.

Early, in-person voting in Ohio continues until 2 p.m. today, though Secretary of State Jon Husted has said those who are in line by then will be able to vote.

Mail-in ballots must be postmarked today. 

Tomorrow, regular polling locations open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.

Husted directive challenged
Meanwhile, Husted is back in court, this time defending a directive regarding provisional balloting that he issued late Friday.

Voters who show up at boards of elections to cast early ballots must show IDs or can write down the last four digits of their Social Security numbers on special forms. Husted is ordering county elections boards to reject their ballots if the ID information is incomplete or filled out incorrectly, rather than correct the information.

Husted spokesman Matt McClellan says the neither the form nor the process is new, and that the order complies with federal court rulings on provisional ballots.

But  Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra says the order  once again unfairly puts the burden on voters to know more than pollworkers about how to vote.

No ruling is expected before tomorrow, Election Day.

Last dash
And in case anyone in Ohio has forgotten that tomorrow is Election Day, last-minute dashes by President Obama and Mitt Romney will remind them. Both were in Northeast Ohio over the weekend and both are in Columbus today. The Romney campaign now says he may be back in Ohio on Election Day as well.

Sentencing of Craigs List killer delayed
The sentencing of the 17-year-old Akron boy convicted in the Craigs List killings has been delayed until Friday.

Brandon Rafferty was to be sentenced today but that was delayed after Summit County prosecutors and defense attorneys could not agree on a deal in which he would testify against his mentor. Rafferty was convicted of helping Richard Beasley lure four men to rural southeast Ohio with phony job postings on Craigs List , then shooting and robbing them. Three of the men’s bodies were found in shallow graves after the fourth escaped. Rafferty faces life in prison with no chance of parole.

Warren water treatment company sues Ohio
A water treatment company in Trumbull County is suing the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for more than $3.5 million.

Patriot Water Treatment was created to treat brine wastewater from oil and gas drilling, which then sends on for processing at the Warren Pollution Control Department. Under former Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration, the Ohio EPA gave Warren a permit to take the treated water.

But the Kasich administration withdrew the permit, which forced Patriot to shut down for three months this spring and summer, until Patriot won an appeal at the Ohio Environmental Review Appeals Commission. It says it lost millions of dollars and that the state deliberately hid documents that would have helped its case.

Ohio gas prices plummet
Gas prices have dropped to nearly $3 a gallon in some parts of Northeast Ohio.  They’ve been dropping steadily for about a month, when prices were up as high as $3.75.