Elections board revamp on hold

Republicans tried to replace the director with the deputy director.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- The Columbiana County Board of Elections will seek legal advice after its mandatory reorganization deadlocked.
The board split Thursday when Republicans Jerry Wolford, board chairman, and Alfred Fricano voted to replace Democratic elections director John Payne with Republican deputy director Lois Gall.
Democrat board members Dennis Johnson and Larry Bowersock voted against the move.
By law, the chairman and director must be from different parties. The board is supposed to reorganize between March 1 and 5 in even-numbered years.
The board finally agreed to seek information on the reorganizational meeting from the county prosecutor's office and the Ohio Secretary of State's Office.
Wolford said that Payne had been director for a number of years but that it would be "good to reverse" the jobs by making Payne the deputy.
Wolford said, "The pay is the same, so there won't be any change."
In the law
Payne told the board that state law required five votes up to 20 minutes apart before a deadlock was declared. Johnson instead moved that the board go into executive session to try to resolve the issue.
Payne has been director since 1993. Gall has been deputy director since 2002.
After the meeting, Payne said the vote was the result of his being one of many people interested in being named to possibly replace state Sen. Charlie Wilson.
The Democrat has filed as a write-in candidate for the 6th Congressional seat after failing to file enough valid signatures of voters to make the Democratic primary.
When the lack of votes came to light, Payne advised Wilson to withdraw the initial petitions, which had been allowed. Wilson filed a second set of petitions, but a change in state law made the first set official.
Wolford maintained he was only advocating a rotation in workers.
Payne said he resented any doubt on his honesty. He noted he helped write ethics guides for the secretary of state's office.
Fricano also asked for legal advice on when information becomes a public record. Fricano said that it had been difficult to tell where different totals of the number Wilson's valid signatures came from.
A board tradition has been to not release information about signatures and similar issues until after the board meets and reviews it. In reality, that would often be days after the information was common knowledge in both parties.
The board members noted at Thursday's session that they don't have a regular meeting date as required by law. No date was set.
Complaint
In other action, the board decided to do nothing with a complaint by John S. Luchansky of Poland. He and Bob Carr of Wellsville were the remaining Democrats in the Congressional primary after Wilson's petitions failed.
Luchansky questioned Carr's "credibility and mental competency" after he allegedly said he was a former Congressman with the same name from another state.
The prosecutor's office told the board it should do nothing because Luchansky did not make a specific complaint. Luchansky did not attend the meeting.
wilkinson@vindy.com