Absentee votes defeat Lakeview schools levy

Absentee votes went overwhelmingly went against the Lakeview Local School District school levy on Tuesday night, turning what looked like approval of the district’s 3.75-mill additional school levy into a three-vote defeat.

At press time Tuesday night, with all 18 precincts in the school district reporting, it looked like the levy would be one of the only issues on the ballot in which voters approved new taxes, with the measure leading 1,631 votes to 1,575 votes.

But at 1:05 a.m., the Trumbull County Board of Elections released the complete but unofficial results, which contained an additional 341 absentee ballots, which are cast by voters during the weeks leading up to the election.

Of those, 341 votes, 200 of them were against the levy, 141 were for it.

There are still votes to be counted, however. Provisional ballots will not be counted for several weeks.

Provisional ballots are cast by people who move into a voting district no more than 30 days before an election, those who change their name (typically through marriage) without notifying the board of elections or fail to provide a valid form of identification when they go to the polls.

With the additional revenue, the school district had hoped to scale back some of the austerity measures it had imposed in recent years, such as reduced busing and pay-to-participate fees.