On Sunday, December 7, the Ohio provisional ballots in the 15th U.S. House race were finally all counted. Democratic nominee Mary Jo Kilroy won with 45.91%. Republican nominee Steve Stivers received 45.15%. Libertarian Mark Noble received 4.62%. Independent Don Elijah Eckhart received 4.25%. Declared write-in candidate Travis Casper received .07%.

This outcome is somewhat surprising, because Republicans had prevailed in the Ohio Supreme Court on whether provisional ballots must include both the voter’s signature and the voter’s printed name on the outer envelope. Generally, the convention wisdom was that the excluded ballots would be more likely to help Democrats than Republicans.

It is also somewhat surprising that the Libertarian and the independent candidate each received so many votes, because polls before the election had made it clear that this was a very close race, just as it had been in 2006, when the Republican had defeated the Democrat by only 1,055 votes.