Howard Wilkinson

So far, during the months of investigation into alleged voter fraud in the 2012 election, the two Republicans and two Democrats on the Hamilton County Board of Elections have, for the most part, played nice, with partisan bickering down to a minimum.

That could change very quickly Wednesday morning, when the board of elections next meets.

That’s when the board will take up the issue of whether to refer more cases of alleged “voter  anomalies” – that is the polite word they have been using for cases of alleged voter fraud – to the Hamilton County prosecutor.

A power outage early this morning cut off electric service  to the University of Cincinnati main campus and the UC Medical Center, but it was restored before noon.

The campus and UC Medical Center were without power from shortly after 8 a.m. until 11:20, according to tweets from the university and UC president Santa Ono.   The hospital kept operating on a back-up power system.

The university has its own power grid which is fed electricity by Duke Energy. It is not known what caused the outage at the UC substation.
 

A Madisonville woman charged with eight counts of illegal voting over three elections is seeking a plea bargain with the Hamilton County prosecutor's office.

Melowese Richardson, 58, who was a poll worker at the Madisonville Recreation Center's polling place last fall, appeared in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Thursday morning, where her lawyer, William Gallagher told Judge Robert Ruehlman that he was negotiating plea agreement.

Undergraduate students at Northern Kentucky University who are Kentucky residents will see their tuition increase by 2.7 percent in the 2013-2014 academic year.

Graduate students from Kentucky will see a 9.3 percent tuition hike, while graduate students from Ohio and Indiana will see their tuition go up by 9.4 percent.

NKU’s board of regents approved the increase Wednesday by a unanimous vote. It will mean a $9 per credit hour tuition hike for resident undergraduates. Their tuition will jump from $328 to $337.

Three more persons have been indicted by a Hamilton County grand jury on charges of illegally voting in the November 2012 election, bringing the number charged with vote fraud up to six so far.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced the indictments Tuesday, saying, if convicted, they face the possibility of up to 18 months in prison.

They were among six cases referred to the prosecutor by the Hamilton County Board of Elections so far in a widespread investigation of vote fraud in last fall’s election.

The three indicted Tuesday are: