Board fires Putnam elections chief

OTTAWA - The Putnam County Board of Elections voted 3-1 during a special meeting Monday evening to remove its director with less than 30 days remaining before the General Election.

The board fired its embattled director, Virginia Price, after Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner sent a notice Monday to the board reporting that someone had violated computer security rules by installing upgrades to the board's computer system without preauthorization from the state.

The board hired Karen Lammers to replace Price.

"The people with no vendetta finally filled their vendetta," Republican Lyle McKanna said after the vote. "They've achieved their goal."

The board had originally called the special meeting to conduct a test of the county's voting system. However, that changed after Brunner sent her notice to the board.

Voting in favor of removal were Democrats Ann Dillinger and Martin Kuhlman, and Republican Marie Heitmeyer. McKanna voted against firing price.

A second motion to appoint Lammers as director was approved 3-1 with Dillinger, Kuhlman, and Heitmeyer voting yes and McKanna voting no.

The Putnam County Board of Elections has remained under administrative oversight by the Ohio Secretary of State's Office since Nov. 9.

For the past several months, board members have raised concerns that Price was not developing policies and procedures and following directives from the secretary of state. The board voted in August to fire Price, but that result was overturned because the motion was improperly made.

In September, the Putnam County Republican Party passed a no-confidence vote against Heitmeyer because of her votes against Price.

"The current election board director has an antagonistic relationship with the election board, has not followed protocol as issued by the secretary of state, and has not shown fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers of Putnam County," Heitmeyer said in her defense. "My exceedingly difficult decision is sure to alienate my fellow Putnam County Republicans since the current director is a Republican, but there are times when one must answer to a higher party."

Kuhlman said people have accused him of making Price's position a political matter.

"It has never been a vendetta or for political reasons," he said. "Today's alleged violations of directives by Price are another indication of what our concerns have been."

Dillinger agreed saying Price has continued to fail to properly establish and implement effective procedures for communication with poll workers on election day and also to develop, adopt and implement written policies and procedures.

McKanna said the board should not have proceeded in this manner.

"We should have checked this allegation out to determine if new software was actually added," he said. "Price was doing a maintenance procedure on the computer that had been recommended by the computer's technical man. ... This is a process we have gone through before for maintenance. I question if it was actually a violation of a directive. We should have investigated it before firing Price."