In a rare victory for compromise over partisan politics, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald avoided a heated and potentially confusing elections battle Friday when they announced an agreement on mailing out absentee ballot applications.

Husted, a Republican, issued a directive last week prohibiting county boards of elections from mailing out absentee ballot applications to all registered voters, as five large Ohio counties — including Montgomery County — have been doing.

Husted said he was not against mailing out the applications, but that all counties, regardless of size, should follow the same elections practices. Many small counties, he said, can’t afford the expense.

But FitzGerald, a Democrat, got bipartisan support from the Cuyahoga County Council on Monday to bypass the board of elections — and Husted’s directive — by having the Public Works Department mail out the applications to voters for the Nov. 8 election.

FitzGerald said large counties need to mail out the applications to avoid long lines at the polls.

In the compromise, announced Friday, Cuyahoga County has agreed not to mail applications to all voters for this year’s election. In exchange, Husted — with support of Statehouse leaders — has agreed to mail out absentee ballot applications to all voters in the state for the 2012 presidential election.

The mailing will be paid for with federal Help America Vote Act funds, said Husted press secretary Matt McClellan.

The deal was reached in a Thursday meeting in Columbus between Husted and FitzGerald.

Husted, in a prepared release, said the two parties were able to “reach consensus to preserve the uniform standards I have sought statewide.”

“I am glad we have been able to work out our differences, but ultimately it will be the voters who benefit from this agreement,” Husted said. “This will help reduce the chance of long lines at the polls during the presidential election, and voters in smaller counties will have the same conveniences as voters in larger counties.”

FitzGerald said Friday he saw the disagreement headed toward a bruising court fight. And although he and his legal team were confident of their position, they realized litigation so close to an election would have confused voters and had the potential to cause “chaos” on Election Day.

So he called Husted on Wednesday and set up a meeting in Columbus.

“There was an almost certainty that there would have been a lot of 11th-hour injunctions and emergency hearings,” FitzGerald said. “I think that would have created a lot of confusion and a lot of ill will, and I’m glad that was avoided.”

Following the long voting lines during the November 2004 election, Cuyahoga County has been mailing the applications out to all voters for every election.

FitzGerald said Cuyahoga County would still prefer to mail out applications this year, but said the result for every county in the state is a “pretty worthy accomplishment.”

“Hopefully we’ve set a new standard for the state, and we won’t ever have to have this discussion again,” he said.

And, FitzGerald said, there was another — not insignificant — accomplishment.

“This was a nice demonstration that people of different parties who have different philosophical views on an issue can still figure out a middle ground that is in the best interests of the state,” he said. “That happens too rarely, but I think it did happen in this case.”