Yesterday, the Ohio Secretary of State’s office corrected a small but irritating problem with that state’s official 2004 election returns on the web.

Michael Badnarik and Michael Peroutka appeared on the Ohio ballot with the label “other-party candidate”, in accordance with a law passed in 2002. Although it seems silly that they didn’t have the labels “Libertarian” and “Constitution”, even “other-party candidate” on the ballot was an improvement under the old law, which said they could have no label at all.

But, until January 20, the Ohio Secretary of State election returns on the web labeled Badnarik and Peroutka as “non-partisan”, an absurd label for two candidates who were the nominees of political parties. The Secretary of State web page was corrected after complaints, so that it now bears the same labels that were on the November ballot.