The Lucas County Board of Elections on Tuesday voted down an effort by one Republican board member to remove the director, Republican Gina Kaczala.

The vote was 3-1 on the motion by board member James Hartley. His fellow Republican on the board, Peter Handwork, sided with the two Democrats in voting to retain Ms. Kaczala.

Mr. Hartley was appointed in March to the four-person board at the recommendation of the county Republican Party. The party opposed the appointment of Mr. Handwork, who was placed on the board by Secretary of State Jon Husted.

Mr. Hartley said his experience as a board member since March and his observations since before that had caused him to lose confidence in Ms. Kaczala.

The motion was seconded by Democratic board member Joshua Hughes as a courtesy to Mr. Hartley, he said. Both Mr. Hughes and Democratic board member Brenda Hill opposed Mr. Hartley’s motion.

Mr. Hartley has clashed with Ms. Kaczala and other board members over what he sees as a misuse of closed-door meetings, known as executive sessions, and for not having a policy requiring background checks for new hires.

Ms. Kaczala survived a purge of the elections board in 2014 when three board members were removed by Mr. Husted because of what Mr. Husted said was chaos in the board office.

Mr. Hartley said he was disturbed by two errors of the board in the last two elections. In the November, 2015, election, the staff accidentally omitted the names of two candidates for Sylvania Township offices from the Sylvania city ballot, and in the March 15 primary, a data card from Mott Branch library with about 50 votes was accidentally excluded from the vote count in Toledo.

Neither mistake affected the outcome of an election.

“We were fortunate when it didn’t cause a bigger problem. When you have two items of this magnitude and I see the general tone [from leadership], that is what has really set me off,” Mr. Hartley said. He said he has complained to the county prosecutor that the board is trying to conceal problems by talking about them in executive session.

Ms. Kaczala said Mr. Hartley was not on the board for the Sylvania mistake and misunderstood the election law in connection with the Mott polling place error.

“He’s just rehashing problems that were solved. This board has run extremely well … and has been a cohesive group that are here to solve problems — not cause problems,” Ms. Kaczala said.

Ms. Kaczala noted that both the Sylvania and Mott flubs were disclosed and discussed in open sessions.

She said the missing card at Mott library was discovered after a mandatory 11-day waiting period, and the Secretary of State’s office was notified immediately.

“For Jim to say we were hiding it, that’s not true. We were told by the board what to do and we did it,” Ms. Kaczala said.

Contact Tom Troy: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058 or on Twitter @TomFTroy.

First Published August 3, 2016, 4:00 a.m.