The Lucas County Board of Elections is struggling to fill all 1,408 jobs for poll workers in today’s election, with 50 Republican jobs and eight Democratic jobs still empty as of Monday.
To limit the number of workers the board will have to hire in future elections and save money, the board voted 3-1 Monday to merge 40 Toledo precincts into 20. It was a move both major party chairmen said was ill-advised, and would lead to long lines and confusion on Election Day in 2016.
The board is bracing for what is expected to be a better-than-average, off-year election turnout today, with voters in Toledo deciding a seven-way race for mayor and all Ohio voters to weigh in on whether to legalize marijuana use.
ELECTION DAY: The Blade’s 2015 Election Guide
On the ballot are municipal mayor and council races, township trustee and fiscal officers, and school board members.
Some jurisdictions are holding levy elections or have local questions. Voters in Ottawa Hills face a school levy and a ballot measure that would allow a bow hunt to cull the deer population.
Election officials point to this year’s early-vote turnout as an indicator of healthy voter interest. When early voting ended at 2 p.m. Monday, 4,334 Lucas County voters had cast early ballots.
ELECTION DAY: Where to vote, when to vote, how to vote
That’s more than twice the early vote in 2013, the last year Toledo had a mayoral election. But it’s fewer than the 5,834 who voted early in 2011, the last year Ohio had a big statewide question on the ballot. Issue 2 in 2011 was to repeal Senate Bill 5, which would have weakened public employee unions.
“I’m thinking we’re having a pretty good turnout,” Lucas County Elections Director Gina Kaczala said Monday. She said people were waiting in line to vote early Sunday.
The polls open in Ohio at 6:30 a.m. today and close at 7:30 p.m.
Three statewide issues are on the ballot.
Issue 1 would institute a bipartisan method for drawing state legislative districts. Issue 2 would ban commercial monopolies from being written into the Constitution. Issue 3 would legalize recreational and medical marijuana in Ohio and would create what the Ohio Secretary of State calls a “monopoly” for the commercial growing of marijuana.
In Toledo, voters will pick a mayor to serve the two years remaining in the term of Mayor D. Michael Collins, who died Feb. 6 at the age of 70, following cardiac arrest five days earlier.
Seven candidates are on the ballot. They are former mayors Carty Finkbeiner and Mike Bell; sitting Councilman Sandy Spang; former councilman Mike Ferner; current Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson, who succeeded Mr. Collins automatically because she was council president; Sandy Drabik Collins, Mr. Collins’ widow, and self-proclaimed prophetess Opal Covey.
The board of elections’ vote to consolidate the 40 precincts affects only Toledo, and only precincts with lower numbers of active voters.
Led primarily by Democratic board member John Irish, the effort is expected to save about $9,400 per election by reducing the the cost of hiring polling place managers and workers. Republican board members Mark Wagoner and Peter Handwork voted with Mr. Irish for the consolidation. Board Chairman Brenda Hill voted no.
Mr. Irish said state law allows up to 1,400 active voters per precinct, but the board tried to limit the number of active voters to 1,000 per merged precinct. The number of active voters in the newly merged precincts will range between 541 in the newly merged 3N and 3M precincts that vote at Regina Coeli Church and 1,076 in the merger of 1D and 1K that vote at North Point Church.
“People will not be disrupted. They’ll be going to the same polling place, and it’ll result in savings,” Mr. Irish said.
Ms. Hill said she opposed the move because of the potential for long waits in the 2016 presidential election.
“We’re going to have much larger numbers of people coming out to vote. I’m concerned there’s going to be a bottleneck,” Ms. Hill said.
She also said that candidates for the Republican and Democratic central committees have already begun filing for their seats. The deadline to file is Dec. 16. The election for central committee members will be March 15.
Central committee members elect the chairman, and in some years the seats for central committee are hotly contested.
The precincts merged are: 1D and K, 2C and E, 2F and G, 2H and I, 3B and H, 3N and M, 4E and H, 5I and J, 6D and F, 9B and E, 9F and I, 12E and D, 12G and H, 15G and J, 17A and E, 17D and H, 19B and F, 20C and E, and 24A and B.
The consolidations will save the board from having to hire 20 voting location managers at a cost of $190 per manager per election and 80 precinct election workers at a cost of $140 per worker, Mr. Irish said.
The board has had trouble recruiting the 1,408 partisan-registered voters to staff the 352 precincts in Lucas County — two workers from each major party. Ms. Kaczala said as of Monday the board was still short by eight Democratic poll workers and 50 Republican poll workers. She said that as long as there is at least one Republican and one Democratic poll worker per precinct, the board can appoint nonaffiliated voters to those jobs, so she said all precinct locations will be staffed.
Jon Stainbrook, chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party, called the consolidation a “rushed decision.”
“They didn’t have to do this. There was no communication from the board members and the board of elections and the parties regarding this. This is basically to cover up because they can’t recruit enough poll workers,” Mr. Stainbrook said. “The voters lose with this because there’s going to be long lines in the presidential election and voter confusion.”
Joshua Hughes, chairman of the Lucas County Democratic Party, said the decision could have waited, and he questioned the need.
“The numbers on which the consolidation is based, I think, lend themselves to potential issues down the road. It’s not necessarily indicative of the turnout that will vote in a presidential election. To consolidate precincts and increase the burden on poll workers is questionable whether it had to be done,” Mr. Hughes said.
Staff Writer Ignazio Messina contributed to this report.
Contact Tom Troy: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058 or on Twitter @TomFTroy.
First Published November 3, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
