Thursday, March 24, 2011
By Karl Henkel
POLAND
Voter turnout was one reason Poland’s 3.9-mill emergency school levy failed in November, and that’s why the Citizens Committee for Poland Schools has taken a new approach to promote voting for May’s upcoming levies.
In a letter sent home with students to parents earlier this month, the committee enclosed absentee ballot forms with a cover letter asking for “support for the two levies that are on the ballot.”
Committee chairman Paul McFadden said the committee did not ask residents to vote for it specifically but to voice their support.
McFadden said the group, which paid for printing costs, sent home forms because the 3.9-mill levy failed by 745 votes in the fall, and it did particularly poorly among absentee ballots, losing at a 2-1 ratio.
As a result, Poland schools now has two levies on the ballot; a 4.9-mill emergency levy that would generate $1.875 million annually for five years and a 3.6-mill emergency renewal that would generate $1.369 million annually for the same period.
An absentee-ballot form, if completed, allows a resident to have a ballot mailed directly to his or her home.
Superintendent Robert Zorn said he doesn’t recall the district’s allowing a parental or parental-support group to send home absentee forms before.
Boardman and Canfield school superintendents, for example, said they have not approved, nor received, requests to send home a similar packet.
Canfield Superintendent Dante Zambrini said the district does have ballot forms available for parents who request them but said it was “probably best not to” send them home en masse.
“It’s like a divorce,” he said. “You don’t want to put the kids in the middle of it.”
The cover letter also states ballots can be used for children age 18 and older who are away at school, and the committee said it will deliver the forms to the Mahoning County Board of Elections.
McFadden said the committee was “absolutely not” advocating using a child’s vote as an additional vote for a parent.
According to the Ohio Secretary of State, any registered Ohio resident can request an absentee ballot at any time for any reason.
Absentee voting for the May 3 election begins Tuesday and ends the day before the election.