Cong OH-15: BREAKING - Pryce by 1,054 Votes per BOE

Thanks to Bill Callahan of Callahan's Cleveland Diary for alerting me that the local NBC affiliate in Columbus is reporting that Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Upper Arlington) came out ahead of challenger Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Columbus) by 1,054 in the official count, which includes absentee and provisional ballots.

UPDATE: The law provides for an automatic recount if the final margin is within one-half of one percent. This margin appears to be just within that limit, since there were about 200,000 votes included in the unofficial results and 20,000 additional ballots to be included in the final count, but this can't be verified without more precise information.

2nd UPDATE: According to this post at DailyKos, Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroeder confirms that the final margin is narrow enough to trigger an automatic recount.

3rd UPDATE: The Columbus Dispatch story is up.

4th UPDATE: More from the local NBC affiliate:

Don McTigue, lawyer for Kilroy, said the final numbers confirmed his own estimates of the margin of votes. "I was predicting that it would be just around 1,000 votes," McTigue said. "I was hoping for just psychological reasons to be just under 1,000, but this is still under the free recount category so I'm very happy about that."

The Franklin County elections board reviewed just under 21,000 provisional ballots, throwing out about 2,600 of them. Most of the uncounted provisionals were cast by people who weren't registered to vote or voted in the wrong precinct, elections director Matt Damschroder said.

Call me stupid, but I don't understand why provisional ballots not counted for those reasons weren't reported to election observers as failing to meet the eight-part test contained in the November 1st consent order. Two of the eight parts of that test are being registered to vote and being eligibile to vote in the precinct. What am I missing?

5th UPDATE: Kilroy has not conceded and said she wants the recount to move forward. The Kilroy campaign will look closely at rejected provisional ballots, particularly those cast by registered voters in the wrong precinct. “This is the longest election night I've been through,” Kilroy said. “We are on to the next phase here.”

6th UPDATE: Just for the record, the AP reports the final margin as 1,055, broken down as follows:

Franklin County (certified Monday):
Kilroy: 98,964
Pryce: 91,411

Madison County (certified Monday):
Kilroy: 5,075
Pryce: 8,337

Union County (certified Nov. 21):
Kilroy: 5,620
Pryce: 10,966

Total:
Kilroy 109,659
Pryce: 110,714