Last week the hot talk was how Ted Strickland could be ineligible to vote because of residency problems. The complaint was voted on by the county election board and the vote ended in a tie right along party lines. That forced the decision to be sent up to the Secretary of State’s office for a final decision, which in turn was sent back to the county level because they never even investigated the claims.

Now after all that, it appears the issue has died:

The flap over where Democratic candidate for governor Ted Strickland lives ended Wednesday when a board of elections decided to no longer pursue the matter, Strickland’s campaign said.

The northeast Ohio woman who filed a challenge of Strickland’s eligibility to vote asked Tuesday to have the complaint dismissed. The Columbiana County Board of Elections received a letter from a lawyer for Jacquelyn Long.

The board met Wednesday and decided to drop the case, Strickland campaign spokesman Keith Dailey said. A message was left for county elections director Lois Gall.

“We’re happy that the right decision was finally made,” Dailey said.

A recent court decision in Strickland’s favor played into Long’s decision to pull the complaint but was among many circumstances she considered, her lawyer said.

This gives us further evidence this was a strictly political ploy. There was never any real question into rather Strickland would be eligible to vote or not. They just wanted to make some front page news trying to act like he wasn’t. Well that has backfired and now we see that the new front page story will be how the Blackwell supporters are so desperate to get Strickland out of the race all together. From the very beginning I knew this story would not go anywhere. The vote from the county board was guaranteed to be along party lines, ending it in a tie that would have to be decided by the Secretary of State’s office. If Blackwell’s office decided that his opponent could not vote then that would certainly enrage Strickland’s supporters and most likely end up turning some Blackwell supporters away.

Now that this episode is over, I wonder how much more we will hear about Strickland being “gay” or supporting pedophiles. After all, we have seen a Blackwell campaign that can not stand on merit along and must resort to new lows in political bashing. In the end Blackwell will be unemployed after first of the year and his chances of being successful in Ohio politics again are gone. Bye Bye Ken – we will definitely not miss you.