Before plunging ahead to analyze upcoming statewide and congressional midterm elections in 2010, a wrap-up of Ohio's 2008 presidential election is in order. Dire predictions, especially from Republican Party leaders, were made about impending electoral chaos.

In the end, the fears of voter fraud were vastly overblown. The margin of Barack Obama's victory was not due to thousands of ACORN-registered voters named ''Mickey Mouse'' flooding precincts across the state.

Likewise, those on the left who feared that long lines and widespread computer malfunctions would result in a ''stolen'' election (as was alleged in 2004, after Bush's re-election victory in Ohio delivered him to the White House for a second term) were proved incorrect. Ohio's election machinery worked smoothly. Lawyers and poll observers looking to pounce went home on Election Day and watched the returns, just like everybody else.

What happened? Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat Ohio Republicans continue to vilify, faced one Republican lawsuit after another as Election Day approached. She stayed cool and did her job to advise and prepare local boards of elections. So did the boards, the county-level, strictly bipartisan entities responsible for running things on Election Day.

After two close, hard-fought presidential elections, in 2000 and 2004, Ohio election officials, it turned out, were ready to handle whatever 2008 could throw at them.

A lower-than-expected turnout also helped, ironically at least partially a product of the tough races in previous presidential election years. ''New voters are easy to register,'' Dr. Stephen Brooks of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron recently explained. ''They are a lot harder to get to the polls.''

In other words, after strong voter registration and turnout drives in 2000 and 2004, increasingly marginal voters were being brought into the system for 2008.

In 2004, about 5.7 million Ohioans cast ballots, a 72 percent turnout. Four years later, 5.6 million voted, but, because the number of registered voters climbed, turnout was about 68 percent. Brunner had predicted an 80 percent turnout, which would have been a record, topping the 77 percent turnout in 1992. That was the year of Bill Clinton's first presidential race, drawing about 5 million to the polls in Ohio.

Brooks also said it is likely that some Republican voters were discouraged about going to the polls after hearing news reports about surveys that indicated Obama's campaign was poised for a big Electoral College victory.

It is also possible that some of the more than 600,000 newly registered voters, a surge that that appeared to be in Obama's favor, may have stayed at home, fearing long lines at the polls and uncertainties over voter registration.

An increase in absentee voting also helped ease lines on Election Day. In the first presidential election since the legislature dropped a requirement that voters indicate a specific reason for requesting an absentee ballot, absentee voting accounted for more than 30 percent of the total votes in some counties, Brunner indicated in a post-election assessment.

Waits of an hour or more at early, in-person absentee voting locations (limited by state law to one per county) in urban areas just before the election have revived the secretary of state's desire for expanding the number of sites per county to four.

Action during the coming lame-duck session does not seem likely, according to House Speaker Jon Husted, but with Democrats in charge next year, an expansion of absentee voting locations will almost certainly move forward.

Finally, a word about election machines themselves. Paper ballots (absentee ballots and paper ballots requested by voters in counties using touch-screen machines) are what caused the most problems this year, the sheer number of ballots delaying counts in Stark and other counties not prepared to handle the onslaught with enough scanning devices.

In Franklin County, where touch-screen machines have long been in use, an analysis by the Columbus Dispatch found the most common voter error was overvoting — on paper ballots.

Electronic machines don't allow a double vote. The final name chosen in a particular race is the one that is recorded. Unless a paper ballot is scanned at the precinct level, a voter who mismarked his or her ballot would not be able to correct the error.

The adjustments necessary, mainly to smooth out the absentee voting process now that its popularity has been established, are tweaks easily accomplished before 2010. Next thing you know, 2012 will be upon us.

Last week's column was based on preliminary election results. Final tallies showed Barack Obama winning 22 of Ohio's 88 counties. Also, it was and still is too early to say the Democrats' new majority in the Ohio House will be 53-46. Two recounts are pending.

Hoffman is a Beacon Journal editorial writer. He can be reached at 330-996-3740 or e-mailed at slhoffman@thebeaconjournal.com.