Ohio's heated Senate race between Sherrod Brown, the incumbent Democrat, and state Treasurer Josh Mandel, the Republican challenger, has claims flying from all sides.

PolitiFact Ohio looked at two last week. You can read those columns and others at there. Here's a quick look at items that appeared in The Plain Dealer:

Attendance record: For months, Democrats have accused Mandel of neglecting his official duties because he didn't attend meetings of the state Board of Deposit.

Mandel fired back with a campaign ad that dings Brown for missing more than 350 votes in Congress.

"With 400,000 unemployed, we need a senator who shows up to work. Sherrod Brown missed over 350 official votes."

PolitiFact Ohio rated the claim Mostly False.

There is an element of truth to the claim. Brown has, in fact, missed more than 350 official votes while a member of Congress. But the claim is misleading and ignores critical facts that would give a listener a different impression.

The 350 missed votes occurred over more than 19 years, starting when Brown entered the U.S. House in January 1993. According to GovTrack, which tracks congressional voting records, there were more than 10,000 recorded votes in that period.

Eighty-three of Brown's missed votes occurred in 2000 after he broke ribs and vertebrae in a car accident in Knox County. He was hospitalized more than a week and missed occasional votes throughout the year because of follow-up medical treatments.

GovTrack indicates that since joining the Senate in 2007, Brown has missed 21 out of 1,779 votes -- a 98.8 percent attendance record. This year, he hasn't missed any votes. In 2011, he missed three. In 2010, he didn't miss any.

Legislative record: Members of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, instruct all kinds of students. Some have autism, a disorder of brain development, and special-education teachers are trained to deal with their social-behavior and communication problems.

Daria Denoia, one such teacher in Columbus, appears in a commercial sponsored by the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education, a political action committee, as part of the union's campaign against Mandel.

In the commercial Denoia said, "I read that Josh Mandel voted to let insurance companies deny coverage for autism."

PolitiFact Ohio rated that claim Mostly True.

Mandel has, in fact, voted on autism coverage, while a member of the Ohio House. A 2009 state bill would have mandated that health insurers cover autism. The bill, backed by autism-care groups, passed the Ohio House but never got out of the Ohio Senate. Mandel, in the House, was among the minority voting no.

As a point of semantics, Mandel did not actually vote to deny autism coverage; it was already denied by many insurers. But he voted against requiring coverage, which has the same effect as voting to allow insurers to deny it.

Untouchable?: Republican opponents of Issue 2, the proposed redistricting reform plan, have targeted the rules that would govern the new citizens committee that would handle redistricting should voters approve the measure on Nov. 6.

Secretary of State Jon Husted recently offered reporters a startling hypothetical situation involving a commission member.

"Apparently, you could accept a bribe from somebody to get the map that you want and you couldn't be removed from this commission," Husted said after a recent meeting of the Ohio Ballot Board.

PolitiFact Ohio rated Husted's claim False.

Issue 2 would establish a 12-member commission to set legislative boundaries that emphasize compactness, community preservation and competitiveness and that reflect how Ohioans have voted.

To insulate the commission from political influence, the proposed amendment states that "no member of the commission shall be subject to removal by the General Assembly or any member of the executive branch." And the ballot language doesn't allow the commission to remove one of its own for questionable activity.

But Husted's claim went too far when he said a commission member could remain after accepting a bribe. Although there isn't a removal process within the proposed amendment, others exist in state law.

Ohio's bribery statute says that a public official convicted of bribery is "forever disqualified from holding any public office, employment or position of trust in this state."

An official convicted of bribery most likely would be removed from office by a judge during sentencing. But if not, Ohio law allows a county prosecutor to file what's called a quo warranto action to remove an official unlawfully holding an office.