Howard Wilkinson

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:

Now that the Cincinnati Democratic Committee has endorsed 10 Cincinnati City Council candidates, the trick for the party will be to let loyal Democrats know that they can only vote for nine of them.

“Yes, we need to develop a message on that,’’ said Hamilton County Democratic Party chairman Tim Burke said. “And, yes, it is a highly unusual situation.”

What happened was this:

Tuesday is a primary election day in Ohio, but voters in many townships, villages and cities in southwest Ohio won’t have anything to vote on.

The candidate races and ballot issues in southwest Ohio counties are few and far between – in fact, in Butler County, there is no election at all.

In Hamilton County, only 129 of the county’s 545 precincts will be up and running Tuesday, according to Amy Searcy, director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. The 129 precincts are in 87 polling places.

The fate of the city of Cincinnati’s parking lease ordinance – and whether or not citizens can put a referendum on the November ballot – is now in the hands of a three-judge panel of the Ohio First District Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments from both sides Monday morning.

The three judges – Penelope Cunningham, Patrick Dinkelacker, and Pat DeWine – heard from lawyers from the city and for the plaintiffs who filed the common pleas lawsuit against the parking lease plan in a half-hour hearing.

It is entirely possible that, this November, two immovable objects will collide on the ballot in Cincinnati.

There is, unless the appeals court intervenes, every likelihood that the referendum to repeal the parking lease passed by Cincinnati City Council will be on the ballot – opponents of the lease plan came up with thousands more signatures than they needed to qualify for the ballot.

And there is a Cincinnati City Council election, with all nine seats up for grabs.