No precinct consolidations planned for Nov. election

By Ed Runyan

A judge agreed to eliminate health-care coverage for elections-board members.

WARREN — The Trumbull County Board of Elections has scrapped a plan to temporarily close 65 to 80 of the county’s 250 voting precincts for the November election, saying consolidation will have to wait until later in the year.

The elections board expected to save $30,000 to $40,000 with the plan, but the Ohio secretary of state’s office said such temporary closings are illegal.

Ron Massullo, regional liaison for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, said there are many steps necessary to eliminate a voting precinct, making it impractical to close a voting precinct unless it is permanent, he said.

Elections officials felt that certain precincts with relatively low numbers of registered voters could be closed this November because an odd-year general election doesn’t bring out a large number of voters compared with an even-year general election.

Ron Knight, a board member who has advocated precinct elimination for several years, prepared an alternate plan to eliminate 23 precincts permanently starting with this November’s election.

He discussed the idea at Tuesday’s board of elections meeting, but Ralph Infante, Niles’ mayor, didn’t attend, so the proposal was put on hold.

Board members agreed that the permanent consolidations will be discussed again between Nov. 3 and Jan. 1, to take effect with the next election in the spring.

Of the 23 precincts proposed for closure, 13 are in Warren, five are in Niles, and one each is in Girard, Bazetta, Champion, Lordstown and Vienna.

Kelly Pallante, county elections director, noted that the elections board would not have saved a lot of money this November from the proposed closed precincts because the city of Warren and the Warren school board will split the cost of operating polling locations in the city in that election.

That is because there are no county officials or issues on the ballot in Warren in this election, only Warren ones, Pallante said.

Meanwhile, Craig Bonar, the Trumbull County Republican Party chairman, said he had no comment on a court ruling by a visiting judge last month that denied him free health care from the county as a member of the elections board.

Bonar was the only one of the four board members who wanted to use the county’s health-care coverage. The others had other coverage.

A visiting judge, Thomas Patrick Curran from Cuyahoga County, ruled Aug. 6 that the commissioners had no obligation to offer health insurance to elections-board members.

Health insurance for Bonar would have cost the county $11,059 in 2008 for a family plan. Each elections-board member is paid $14,316 annually in salary.

runyan@vindy.com