Minutes before the closing bell Tuesday, a flurry of trades sent the Web search leader's stock plummeting 10 percent to close at $341.43.

Nasdaq said in a statement that erroneous orders routed to Nasdaq from another market center were responsible for the high volume of trades.

The exchange raised Google's closing price to $400.52 — a 5 percent gain for the day — and canceled all trades below that amount and above $425.29 between 3:57 p.m. and 4:02 p.m. EDT.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati denied the Ohio GOP's request that, at the very least, ballots cast during the weeklong period be segregated from other ballots cast for the Nov. 4 presidential election.

A federal district judge in Columbus declined to rule on the matter Monday. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the early voting window in a 4-3 decision the same day, while a federal judge in Cleveland also sided with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

The appeals court noted that the lower district court did not rule on the matter of the voting window, and said the argument involves facts about how election officials handle absentee ballots that must first be presented to a lower court.

Bill Todd, a lead attorney for the Ohio GOP, said the party was discussing its options Tuesday night. It wasn't known whether they planned to further appeal.

The appeals court also gave Brunner a second victory, rejecting a GOP challenge to her advisory that county boards of elections weren't required to allow poll observers during early voting.

A federal judge in Columbus issued a temporary restraining order against Brunner's instructions Monday. But the appeals court overturned that ruling, saying the district court had abused its discretion in granting the order.

Thousands of Ohioans went to the polls Tuesday for the first day of early voting. Ohio's largest counties had several hundred voters each, and a small portion of them also registered Tuesday.

Defense lawyers maintain that Simpson was just trying to retrieve personal belongings, family photos and heirlooms that had been stolen from him years ago.

On Wednesday, the jury that heard the prosecution's case against Simpson and co-defendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart was scheduled to hear from defense witness, Thomas Scotto, the wedding groom for whom Simpson came to Las Vegas to serve as best man.

Scotto, 46, a North Miami Beach, Fla., auto repair shop owner, served as go-between and banker for Simpson after Simpson's arrest Sept. 16, 2007, and again following his re-arrest in January when he was accused of violating terms of his bail release.

Scotto, who was preparing for his wedding, did not accompany Simpson from the Palms resort pool to the alleged armed robbery in a Palace Station casino hotel room. But his name is heard on audio recordings played for the jury during the first 11 days of testimony in the case.

Simpson and Stewart have pleaded not guilty to 12 criminal charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping. Each man could face five years to life in prison if convicted in the Sept. 13., 2007, confrontation.

The prosecution rested Monday, and the courtroom was dark Tuesday for a scheduled day off. Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass said outside the presence of the jury that closing arguments could come as early as Thursday. The jury would then begin deliberations.

Simpson's lawyers told the judge that Scotto could be their last witness. Outside court, defense lawyers said no decisions had been made whether Simpson or Stewart would testify. Stewart's lawyers said they expect to call several witnesses.

Simpson's defense lawyers brought one of the alleged victims, Alfred Beardsley, back to the witness stand. The sports memorabilia dealer repeated that charges against Simpson should be dropped, and said again that he and Simpson had been "set up" by Thomas Riccio, the collectibles broker who arranged their hotel room meeting.

Shell Oil Co. and the railroads — the Burlington, Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. and the Union Pacific Railroad Co. — say they are being unfairly tagged with an inordinate portion of the cost of cleaning up the site.

The companies contend they merely transported and sold legal, useful products and were not involved in years of soil and groundwater contamination.

The site was once the home of a fertilizer and insecticides manufacturing facility.

The reading, which doesn't reflect attitudes following Monday's steep stock market sell-off, remains near a 16-year low. The Conference Board reports Tuesday its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 59.8 from a revised 58.5 in August.

Wall Street had expected a reading of 55.5, according to Thomson/IFR.

The Dow Jones industrials are up 215 at the 10,588 level.

Five people were waiting at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections when doors opened at 8:30 a.m. Two in line said they were voting for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, including John Fuller, 73, a retired hospital orderly from Cleveland.

Fuller said voting early would allow him to work on Election Day helping others get out and vote. Fuller and others in line Tuesday morning were previously registered.

Election officials around Ohio prepared for a rush of early voting Tuesday, the first day absentee ballots are accepted in advance of the Nov. 4 presidential election.

Backed by the state Supreme Court and two federal judges, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, is allowing new voters to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day from Tuesday through Oct. 6.

For weeks, the Ohio Republican Party accused Brunner of interpreting the early voting law to benefit her own party by allowing same-day registering and voting. Republicans argued that Ohio law requires voters to be registered for 30 days before they cast an absentee ballot.

But the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court decided Monday that Brunner was following the law. The decision was backed by a federal judge in Cleveland. Another federal judge in Columbus declined to rule, deferring to the state Supreme Court's decision.

On Tuesday, the Ohio Republican Party asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati should either stop same-day voting or at least require the state's top elections official to separate those ballots so they can be verified. Brunner, however, has already instructed election officials to segregate the ballots cast by those who register on the same day and verify the registration information before those ballots are counted.

The second voter in line at the Board of Elections here was Julia Kramer, 19, a Case Western Reserve University freshman from New York City and an Obama volunteer. She said she's been working on campus to register out-of-state students to change their registrations to Ohio because of its critical role in the election.

Nevertheless, "A lot of people are really attached to their hometowns," Kramer said. "It's hard to explain to people that your vote (in New York) won't count as much."

In Columbus, voters wanting to cast ballots as soon as possible on Tuesday morning had set up tents Monday night to wait in line outside the Franklin County Board of Elections.

Obama's campaign organized car pools from college campuses to early voting sites. The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless is ferrying voters from homeless shelters to polling sites in the Cleveland area. Other organizations that seek to increase poor and minority participation in elections are transporting voters from low-income neighborhoods.

The targeted voters have all traditionally had a harder time getting registered, and then getting to polling places on Election Day.

Republicans weren't ceding the early voting crowd just because they were engaged in a court challenge.

"You have a special opportunity to help elect John McCain, Sarah Palin and Republicans across the ballot," a page on the Republican National Committee's Web site said.

The window occurs because state law requires absentee voting to begin 35 days before Election Day, on Sept. 30, while the end of registration for this election is Oct. 6. The window was used by voters sparingly in previous elections, but never got any attention until the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law in 2005 that enabled all Ohio voters to vote absentee.

Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, 53, of Vienna, Va., struck a deal in U.S. District Court, pleading guilty to a single count of wire fraud for "depriving the United States and its citizens of their right to his honest services."

As part of the plea, prosecutors dropped 27 other counts against him and agreed to seek a prison term no longer than three years and a month.

Foggo was the agency's third-highest ranking officer from 2004 to 2006 and responsible for its daily operations. He will be sentenced on Jan. 8 and faces up to 20 years in prison. However, it is far more likely that U.S. District Judge James Cacheris will impose a sentence more closely in line with the three-year term recommended by prosecutors.

Foggo was not charged with taking bribes, but prosecutors said in court papers that he received up to $70,000 worth of gifts from his friend Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor. The gifts included expensive dinners at gourmet steakhouses and free vacations for Foggo and his family in Scotland and Hawaii.

He and his lawyer declined comment after the hearing.