Elections are serious business, always were and maybe now more than ever. That means that the games that used to be played at the Lucas County Board of Elections have to stop.
Secretary of State Jon Husted’s removal of Bruce Saferin as a board member is decisive action with a stern message: don’t mess with our elections.
Dr. Saferin came to the four-member Lucas County elections board in 2017 with the support of former Lucas County Republican Chairman Jon Stainbrook.
One of his first actions was to attempt to place in the staff leadership of the board someone who did not live in Lucas County, and had no recent election experience. His career was as a tugboat engineer. As necessary as that job is, it’s not an election-related background and it was an inappropriate attempted personnel move by Republican members of the board of elections.
The purpose of that move, clearly engineered by Mr. Stainbrook, was to force the removal of then-Director Gina Kaczala, who was doing a good job but with whom he had fallen out. That effort failed. A second candidate, then-City Councilman Theresa Gabriel, proved more acceptable to the two Democratic members of the elections board and she was approved to be deputy director, under the previous deputy director, LaVera Scott, who was made director.
Those personnel changes benefited Mr. Stainbrook, but not the voters of Lucas County, who were being well-served by the previous Scott-Kaczala team.
In the most recent election, Lucas County was the last county in Ohio to report returns. There were other failures of election management that were detailed in the report of the hearing officer on Dr. Saferin’s removal.
Running fair, honest, transparent, and accurate elections is hard work and requires all hands on deck. Election laws can be complicated, and now elections systems are threatened by Internet hackers.
There is no margin for the kind of carnival atmosphere that pervaded the elections offices when Mr. Stainbrook was a board member and his ally, Meghan Gallagher, was the director. Both of them were rightly removed from office. But on election night, the two were hanging around the elections board offices. That is their right, but they were perceived as being in the way. And yet Dr. Saferin had time to “confer” with them, and directly outside the entrance to the ballot tabulation room where votes were being counted.
According to the Secretary of State’s report, only elections officials and duly appointed elections observers are permitted to be in the place where ballots are being tabulated. There is no record of the two being duly appointed observers.
As one of his last acts as Secretary of State, Mr. Husted removed Dr. Saferin. He acted properly and in the interests of the voters of Lucas County.
First Published January 9, 2019, 11:00 a.m.