Elimination of precincts, staff cuts are unavoidable

Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras is concerned that reducing the number of precincts will depress the turnout in the November general because long lines at polling places could cause voters to leave before casting their ballots.

And since the election this year features highly competitive statewide races, the chairman in the predominantly Democratic county sees the smaller number of precincts as being bad for his party’s candidates.

It’s debatable whether Betras has reason to worry, but what is unquestioned is the board of elections’ responsibility to increase turnout by making voting as convenient as possible.

The proposed elimination of 37 of the 287 precincts and the reduction in staff announced last week by Director Thomas McCabe and Deputy Director Joyce Kale Pesta cannot be avoided. The county elections board is on track to overspend its $1.32 million budget by $185,000. And since county commissioners David Ludt, Anthony Traficanti and John McNally have made it abundantly clear that there’s no money to cover the excessive spending in any government department, cuts must be made.

The board must ensure that eliminating precincts and cutting employees — between two and four of the 14 employees could be laid off — do not cause problems in November.

It is incumbent upon McCabe and Pesta, as the top staffers, and the four members of the board of elections to develop a plan for accommodating what could be a large turnout because of the governor’s race and other statewide contests, including a closely watched one for U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican George V. Voinovich.

The impatience of voters has been demonstrated time and again in Ohio. Who can forget the 2000 presidential election debacle in the state when bottlenecks at polling places, especially in heavily Democratic precincts, resulted in people walking away?

Ohio’s no-fault absentee voting is the ideal solution to the cutbacks that most boards of elections are experiencing. While election day remains important to many voters, voting by mail is growing in popularity.

Boards of elections should continue educating people about the benefits and convenience of mailing in a request for a ballot, receiving the ballot in the mail, casting the ballot in the convenience of one’s home and then mailing the ballot back to the elections office.

Training

But for those diehards who still get pleasure from making the trek to the polling stations, their contact with the poll workers assigned to each precinct is crucial. The workers must be well trained and, therefore, the Mahoning County Board of Elections should reconsider the plan to only train the presiding judge in each precinct.

There are other cost-saving measures that may be adopted, such as increasing employee health-care premium contribution from 10 to 20 percent, closing on Fridays during the slow months of the year and reducing workers’ salaries by 20 percent during that period.

Board employees may also be required to pay about 10 percent of their state retirement contribution.

Spending must be cut, but the board of elections should not do so at the expense of the voting public. The reduction in precincts, which most boards are implementing, must be undertaken with care.