Morning News and Stuff

Today is the last day of in-person early voting. Find your correct polling booth

here

. Check out CityBeat ’s endorsements here .

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is under fire for alleged voter suppression once again. In response to recent court rulings on provisional ballots, Husted sent out a

directive

on Nov. 2 that shifts the burden of proper identification during the provisional ballot process from

poll workers to voters

. The directive may not even be legal, according to a

lawsuit

quickly filed by voters’ rights activists in response to the new rule: “Ohio Rev. Code § 3505.181(B)(6) provides that, once a voter casting a provisional ballot proffers identification, ‘the appropriate local election official shall record the type of identification provided, the social security number information, the fact that the affirmation was executed, or the fact that the individual declined to execute such an affirmation and include that information with the transmission of the ballot.’”

President Barack Obama was at the University of Cincinnati yesterday to make a

closing argument

to Ohioans. In his speech, Obama compared his own ideas and policies to those of Bill Clinton, while comparing Mitt Romney’s ideas and policies to those of George W. Bush. With just two days of voting left, all eyes are on Ohio as it could play the

decisive role

in the presidential election. In aggregate polling, Obama is up

2.9 points in Ohio

and

0.4 points nationally

.

FiveThirtyEight

, The New York Times ’ election forecast model, has Obama at an 86.8 percent chance to win Ohio and an 86.3 percent chance to win the election.

Early voters packed polling places around the state yesterday. The line around the Hamilton County Board of Elections wrapped around the entire building for much of the day. Butler County

had a lot of early voters

as well. Early voting was only available to all Ohioans yesterday thanks to a lawsuit from Obama and Democrats, which opened up in-person early voting during the weekend and Monday before Election Day

despite strong opposition from state Republicans

.

Election Day may be tomorrow, but the entire process may not be finished at the end of the day. In 2008,

Ohio took weeks to count the last 490,852 ballots

.

Slate reenacted the entire presidential campaign, from finding the Republican nominee to today, through

video games

.

The groundwork is already being laid out for an

amendm

ent lega

lizing same-sex marriage in Ohio

, which could be on the ballot as soon as November 2013.

Some in northeast Ohio are

still without power due to Hurricane Sandy’s fallout

. Most people affected are in Cleveland and surrounding suburbs.

Ohio gas prices are

dropping

.

Early results from air quality tests show no signs of pollution near shale gas drilling wells. But the results are early, and more tests are ongoing. CityBeat wrote in-depth about fracking and concerns surrounding the process

here

.

The deadline for

Ohio’s exotic animal registration

is today. The new requirement came about after an Ohio man released 50 exotic animals, including some dangerous predators, shortly before committing suicide in 2011.

A lonely Asian elephant learned how to speak some Korean, and scientists want to know how and why.