Lakeview school levy now ahead by 2 votes

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

With 24 provisional and absentee ballots added, the Lakeview school levy is now in the win column by two votes.

Lakeview Superintendent Robert Wilson hopes it stays that way this time.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” Wilson said Monday after being informed by Kelly Pallante, Trumbull County elections board director, that the most recent count shows the levy passing.

Pallante said the elections board now shows the vote total to be 1,786 for the levy, 1,784 votes against. That is close enough to qualify for an automatic recount, which will be conducted sometime next week.

The elections board meets today to certify the election results and set a specific date for the recount, Pallante said.

Wilson said he’s been informed that recounts rarely affect vote total, so he’s hopeful that the 3.75-mill, five-year additional levy will, in fact, win approval.

The levy will raise $1,050,000 annually and would be used to restore busing for high school students, increase the number of stops Lakeview buses would make along their routes, eliminate all student fees, cut pay-to-participate fees in half, purchase textbooks, increase technology capabilities and offset the $125,000 loss in state school funding for the 2010-11 school year.

This is the third reversal of fortune for the levy.

On election night, May 4, the levy looked like it had won, 1,631 votes to 1,575, because the elections board indicated that the total represented the results from all 18 voting precincts.

But at around 1:05 a.m., the elections board reported complete but unofficial results, which included 341 votes from absentee voters. At that point the levy was losing by three votes.

Of the most recent votes included, 19 were provisional votes — those cast by people who move into a voting district no more than 30 days before an election or 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.

Another five were absentee votes that were postmarked by May 3, Pallante said.

The last set of votes counted do not change the result in any other races or issues, Pallante said.