http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news...15304345%2fnews%2fohio%2fcss%2fresults.css/rk
Election 2016
Ohio elections chief touts fairness in close races that draw little voter interest
By Doug Livingston
Beacon Journal staff writer
0 Comment(s)
Published: April 22, 2016 - 09:17 PM | Updated: April 23, 2016 - 08:45 AM
Ohio’s elections chief announced Friday that eight races and two ballot issues in the March primary, including two in Medina County, came down to a single vote.
Another five races, including a nail-biter for Medina County commissioner, were determined by a margin of 0.5 percent, automatically triggering a recount.
Jon Husted, Ohio’s secretary of state, has added the 10 tight contests to a tally his office keeps, now above 100 since the fall of 2013.
“The reason we work so hard to make it both easy to vote and hard to cheat in Ohio is because after each election, we find races where just one vote tipped the scales,” Husted said. “There is no room for error when just one vote can make a difference.”
Eight of the close races in the most recent primary drew little voter interest for party positions few Ohioans understand.
In a precinct of 700 voters in Brunswick, for example, 308 people participated in the presidential primary. But only 11 elected a candidate to the county’s Republican Party central committee. The obscure group, present in every Ohio county, sends one representative from each precinct to decide — on occasion — all the local and inside-party stuff, like who gets to chair the county’s Republican or Democratic parties or which upstart politicians gets a boost from a newly created position (a reason why Summit County Democrats said they added a third-chair position last week).
These groups form the foundational grass roots of each major party. Yet the two Republican candidates running in Medina County collected three votes apiece, about the size of the average household in Ohio. In the low-turnout race, which interested a total of 11 voters, five Brunswick residents wrote in their own names or the word “me,” said Carol A. Lawler, a Republican and director of the Medina County Board of Elections.
The simple answer for such low participation is that people don’t know much about the position or the candidates, who avoided collecting the five signatures required to get on the ballot and instead filed free paperwork, which would cost a fee for more notable office-seekers, to be write-in candidates.
“Maybe they don’t understand what it’s all about so only 11 people voted,” said Lawler. “I think maybe people weren’t sure what the central committee does.”
One vote away
Husted spokesman Joshua Eck described past elections in which a single vote resulted in “your taxes staying the same or that beat-up road that everyone drives on getting fixed or more money going to your school.”
“This is the people’s opportunity to directly decide how the government is going to function,” Eck said. “These are situations where your vote has a huge impact.”
But the eight tightest races in March mostly involved electing party positions (seven Republican and one Democratic) to committees that shape the political rules that candidates and the parties must follow. It’s an indirect way of electing officials who will contribute to a deliberative process and subsequently shape politics.
Two issues tied.
In such close elections, whether between candidates or the passage of an issue, votes are automatically recounted.
How to break the tie, however, can differ.
A tie means failure for issues. Two issues tied and tanked in March: a liquor license for a Speedway in Lawrence County and a tax levy for road repairs in Parkman Township, a community of about 4,000 people with a heavily travelled highway connecting Cleveland with Warren.
The non-issues races, Eck explained, are all about chance.
“When it comes to candidates, the board of elections can decide how they want to handle it,” he said. “But normally they flip a coin or draw straws.”
That’s what happened in Brunswick and Guilford Township when Medina County voters — 14 in both precincts — deadlocked on four write-in candidacies with names voters would have had to know before voting. In both races, more people voted for themselves, the word “me” or an ineligible candidate.
In the end, Lawler said a coin toss decided the outcome.
Terri J. Menser of Guilford Township beat Alfred Ellis and Andrew C. Pavell of Brunswick lucked out over George M. Staursky.
“I’ve never experienced that before. I think it’s been several years since anything was decided with a coin toss here,” said Lawler, who noted that her party asked an impartial Democrat to toss the coin.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug.
Click here to read or leave a comment(s) on this story.
Election 2016
Ohio elections chief touts fairness in close races that draw little voter interest
By Doug Livingston
Beacon Journal staff writer
0 Comment(s)
Published: April 22, 2016 - 09:17 PM | Updated: April 23, 2016 - 08:45 AM
Ohio’s elections chief announced Friday that eight races and two ballot issues in the March primary, including two in Medina County, came down to a single vote.
Another five races, including a nail-biter for Medina County commissioner, were determined by a margin of 0.5 percent, automatically triggering a recount.
Jon Husted, Ohio’s secretary of state, has added the 10 tight contests to a tally his office keeps, now above 100 since the fall of 2013.
“The reason we work so hard to make it both easy to vote and hard to cheat in Ohio is because after each election, we find races where just one vote tipped the scales,” Husted said. “There is no room for error when just one vote can make a difference.”
Eight of the close races in the most recent primary drew little voter interest for party positions few Ohioans understand.
In a precinct of 700 voters in Brunswick, for example, 308 people participated in the presidential primary. But only 11 elected a candidate to the county’s Republican Party central committee. The obscure group, present in every Ohio county, sends one representative from each precinct to decide — on occasion — all the local and inside-party stuff, like who gets to chair the county’s Republican or Democratic parties or which upstart politicians gets a boost from a newly created position (a reason why Summit County Democrats said they added a third-chair position last week).
These groups form the foundational grass roots of each major party. Yet the two Republican candidates running in Medina County collected three votes apiece, about the size of the average household in Ohio. In the low-turnout race, which interested a total of 11 voters, five Brunswick residents wrote in their own names or the word “me,” said Carol A. Lawler, a Republican and director of the Medina County Board of Elections.
The simple answer for such low participation is that people don’t know much about the position or the candidates, who avoided collecting the five signatures required to get on the ballot and instead filed free paperwork, which would cost a fee for more notable office-seekers, to be write-in candidates.
“Maybe they don’t understand what it’s all about so only 11 people voted,” said Lawler. “I think maybe people weren’t sure what the central committee does.”
One vote away
Husted spokesman Joshua Eck described past elections in which a single vote resulted in “your taxes staying the same or that beat-up road that everyone drives on getting fixed or more money going to your school.”
“This is the people’s opportunity to directly decide how the government is going to function,” Eck said. “These are situations where your vote has a huge impact.”
But the eight tightest races in March mostly involved electing party positions (seven Republican and one Democratic) to committees that shape the political rules that candidates and the parties must follow. It’s an indirect way of electing officials who will contribute to a deliberative process and subsequently shape politics.
Two issues tied.
In such close elections, whether between candidates or the passage of an issue, votes are automatically recounted.
How to break the tie, however, can differ.
A tie means failure for issues. Two issues tied and tanked in March: a liquor license for a Speedway in Lawrence County and a tax levy for road repairs in Parkman Township, a community of about 4,000 people with a heavily travelled highway connecting Cleveland with Warren.
The non-issues races, Eck explained, are all about chance.
“When it comes to candidates, the board of elections can decide how they want to handle it,” he said. “But normally they flip a coin or draw straws.”
That’s what happened in Brunswick and Guilford Township when Medina County voters — 14 in both precincts — deadlocked on four write-in candidacies with names voters would have had to know before voting. In both races, more people voted for themselves, the word “me” or an ineligible candidate.
In the end, Lawler said a coin toss decided the outcome.
Terri J. Menser of Guilford Township beat Alfred Ellis and Andrew C. Pavell of Brunswick lucked out over George M. Staursky.
“I’ve never experienced that before. I think it’s been several years since anything was decided with a coin toss here,” said Lawler, who noted that her party asked an impartial Democrat to toss the coin.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug.
Click here to read or leave a comment(s) on this story.