SHEFFIELD TWP. — Problems were found with a little more than half of all provisional votes cast in the county’s March 4 primary election, elections board officials said Tuesday.

“This was not an easy election, but we managed to get through it very well,” said Jose Candelario, director of the Board of Elections.

Of the 2,551 provisional votes received, the board might throw out 1,146, he said.A report to the board showed nine people tried to vote twice — their names have been handed over to the county prosecutor — while votes cast by 379 unregistered residents won’t be counted.

Another 149 ballots by people who voted at the wrong precinct will be tossed, as well as votes from 146 people who couldn’t provide required identification, the report said.

Another 106 who couldn’t show a document proving their date of birth will have their votes thrown out, too.

The ballots of 69 youngsters who were technically eligible to vote even though they are only 17 will still be counted, the elections board said. Those teens were accidentally handed full ballots even though Ohio law only lets them vote for candidates and not issues, Candelario said.

The remainder were tossed for a host of reasons, mostly due to improperly completed paperwork. But those irregularities were pretty typical of a big election, especially considering the extremely high turnout, he said.

Far more harrowing was the massive snowstorm that knocked the county senseless on Election Day, board member Thomas Smith said.

The county Emergency Management Agency called in volunteers with four-wheel-drive vehicles to collect ballots from polling stations and to help pull poll workers’ cars out of huge snow drifts, he said.

Deputy Elections Director Marilyn Jacobcik said the storm knocked out power at three precincts, and Elections Board Chairman Robert Rousseau said some people had to cast votes in the dark when the lights were lost at election headquarters in Sheffield Township.

The board also struggled with a ruling by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, which required them to pay about $7,500 to buy 20,000 paper ballots for voters who wanted to use them — and Candelario said only 146 people chose to do so.

“There was just no demand out there, and we wasted a lot of money,” Smith said.

The good news is that Brunner probably won’t force counties to use paper ballots again in the fall – mostly because there’s no money for it, Jacobcik said.

Candelario said even if Brunner brought the hammer down, the companies that make paper ballots wouldn’t have enough time or resources to fill the orders.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has voted to give Ohio a little more than $4 million to cover the cost of using paper ballots in the primary, and some of that cash will be left over to help counties that want to use it again in November, Jacobcik said.

The funding won’t, however, offset the $36,000 Candelario was forced to spend to mail voting information to residents – which he did to comply with a new state law, he said. That same amount will have to be spent again this fall for another mandatory mailing, he said.

Contact Jason Hawk at 329-7148 or jhawk@chroniclet.com.

 

---

Print this story
Report an inappropriate comment

---

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.

Need help? Email Us.

---