TOLEDO, Ohio —
Republicans have control of the U.S. House of Representatives, but there are still several races waiting to be called. One of those races is Ohio's 9th Congressional District, between incumbent U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur and state Rep. Derek Merrin.
Despite Election Day taking place over a week ago, there are still ballots that need to be counted. Every Board of Elections has to go through provisional ballots and outstanding absentee ballots.
WTOL 11 reached out to each Board of Elections in the state's 9th Congressional District. There are at least 8,000 provisional and outstanding absentee ballots among the eight counties that the district represents.
The Lucas County Board of Elections conducted its adjudication process today, where it looked at provisional ballots and determined whether to accept or reject them. An example of these ballots would be those with invalid birthdays or ballots people voted at the wrong precinct.
Four board members reviewed each ballot, one by one, and determined if the vote would be counted in the official results.
The Lucas County's Board of Elections will meet again on Monday, Nov. 18, to review ballots before certifying the results.
Once each county's board of elections has gone through the outstanding ballots a final certification meeting will be held. This will become the official results for each county.
Fulton County plans to certify results on Monday, Nov. 18. Erie and Williams counties will certify on Tuesday, Nov. 19. Lucas, Sandusky, Wood and Ottawa counties will certify results on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
This means on Wednesday there will be a better idea of which candidate will win. If the results are within one-half of 1% there will automatically be a recount in this race, which will be handled by the Ohio Secretary of State's office.
However, if results are not within one-half of 1%, either campaign could call for a recount.
After Defiance County officially certified its results, U.S. Rep. Kaptur has a lead of 1,069 votes over State Rep. Merrin.