WAPAKONETA — Michelle Wilcox won’t be enjoying elephant ears and corndogs at the Auglaize County Fair this week.
Instead, the director of the Auglaize County Board of Elections will be running a primary election that wasn’t even supposed to be in August. Her largest polling location won’t be open at the fairgrounds, where it’s been for years. Most of her voters aren’t even in the same state representative district where they’ve been for 10 years.
“Auglaize County was lucky enough to be one of the counties that was split (in redistricting),” Wilcox said. “That has really led to voter confusion. Even way back in the May 3 election, we had voters show up here to vote in these races. I think it all just leads to voter confusion.
“You don’t know what district you’re in. They get flyers from candidates, then they come in here expecting to vote for a certain candidate. And maybe that’s not their district anymore because of the redistricting.”
Redistricting has been the gift that keeps on giving for exhausted elections workers. The good news is area elections officials say they’re ready for it, even if most are only expecting about 20% turnout.
“We go through just as much work putting on something like this, and we’d like to see people take advantage of it and vote,” said Kathy Meyer, director of the Allen County Board of Elections.
In-person voting is open 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, although people can still vote at county boards of election from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday. Through Friday, 1,905 ballots had already been cast in-person or through mail-in absentee voting in the five area counties.
“Ohio is a national leader in making voting accessible and convenient, all the while maintaining security throughout the process and delivering accurate, audited results,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a press release. “Whether Ohioans choose to vote early in-person, by mail-in absentee ballot, or at their polling location on Election Day, each of these options makes participating in our democratic process easy and inclusive.”
How we got here
In case you missed it, here’s the short story on why there’s a statewide election in August: Ohio redistricts its state and federal representatives every 10 years following each U.S. census. A new redistricting commission put several plans together, which kept getting rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court for not being balanced enough. A federal court finally said Ohioans should vote in 2022 with the maps originally approved by the state House and Senate, despite the maps being ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court.
By the time all that happened, it was too late to put those races on the May ballot. Instead, voters have a rare August primary to choose who might represent them in the Ohio House and Senate.
Adding to the confusion, there are only two incumbents in the four House districts in the region. And one of those, Susan Manchester, finds her district substantially shifted to the north into Allen County, where voters will choose her or Dr. J.J. Sreenan as the Republican with no Democratic opposition in November to replace House Speaker Bob Cupp. Cupp can’t run again due to term limits.
Voters can also choose their party’s representatives to the state central committee. One Senate district is on the ballot, Robert McColley’s 1st District (all of Defiance, Hancock, Hardin, Henry, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert and Williams counties and portions of Auglaize, Fulton and Logan counties), but he’s unopposed in the primary and general elections.
Moving things around
The extra election has had its share of obstacles.
Auglaize County traditionally had its largest polling location at the Auglaize County Fairgrounds. With rides, food and agricultural exhibits out there during the county fair, that’s not an option. Those voters will have to go to The Grand Plaza, 913 Defiance St., Wapakoneta, instead. There will be signs at the fairgrounds directing people to the new site, just in case.
Allen County was able to secure the same sites, just different locations. The polling location at Allen East High School will now be in the small gym. One at Shawnee Alliance Church moved to the activities building across the street. Another at Spencerville schools moved into the high school.
Voters in Putnam and Van Wert counties will be able to vote in their regular polling places, officials said.
A costly challenge
Fortunately, area counties don’t anticipate falling behind financially because of the election. The state provided grants topping a combined $632,000 to run the elections in Allen, Auglaize, Hardin, Putnam and Van Wert counties. That will help pay for the supplies, staffing and overtime needed to run Tuesday’s election.
That’s not much solace for taxpayers, who funded those state grants, said Chelsea Clark, the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State in November’s election.
“It’s simple. We are holding an election on Aug. 2 that will cost taxpayers in this state $20 million or more, and Frank LaRose is responsible,” Clark said in a press release. “Not getting the job done in May ran the taxpayer tab up another $9 million. And Frank LaRose is spending more than $300,000 on self-promotional public service announcements because he was derelict in his initial duties to fully notify voters of this special election. Give taxpayers a break!”
Things could’ve been worse locally. Counties here waited until the federal ruling before printing out May ballots. Some counties had already printed theirs before the May election, meaning they had to toss those.
“We were given over $169,000 for this special election that we can use on all costs for this election,” Allen County’s Meyer said. “The legislators have granted this money, and we’ll be able to use it for poll worker pay, ballots, everything that pertains to this election.”
Finding the volunteers
It’s always been a challenge pairing one Democrats and one Republican at each polling location to keep the elections fair. There was a new enemy with the August election: Vacations.
“There’s a lot of people on vacation in August,” said Karen Warnecke, director of the Putnam County Board of Elections. “I don’t know if it was really difficult. I just had to call on down the list, you know? If people were on vacation, you just keep going down the list until it was filled in.”
All area counties have enough pollworkers to conduct the elections, as long as no one gets sick. There are some backups in place, just in case.
“We always kind of run short on these, especially since there are predominantly Republicans here,” said Pam Henderson, director of the Van Wert County Board of Elections. “It’s kind of hit and miss with people who might be on vacation, might be sick, might not be able to help now but will work in November.”
Worn out workers
The biggest cost may be in election workers’ enthusiasm. The August election is cutting into the time they should be working on the November general election, which includes federal and statewide issues and local issues.
“People think that we only work two days a year,” Auglaize County’s Wilcox said. “Right now, with this election, we have the average of 200 extra hours. We’re working 11-, 12-hour days now. If we have provisionals that voters need to cure, we’ll actually be working 20-straight days. …
“I guess what I’m saying is we’re probably not going to be going to the fair this year.”
