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Mahoning board certifies election tallies
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Board of Elections certified the final results of the March 6 primary with no changes to the winners and losers.
The board on Monday included 267 provisional ballots to the final tally. Overall, 49,121 people voted in the primary.
That’s 29.62 percent of the 165,857 registered voters in the county.
In the hotly contested county prosecutor’s Democratic primary race, both incumbent Paul J. Gains, who won, and Youngstown City Prosecutor Jay Macejko each received 102 provisional ballots.
That means Gains won by 561 votes, the same lead he had on the night of the primary.
Even the 1.74-percent margin of victory is unchanged from the primary-night total.
“This didn’t change the prosecutor’s race at all,” said board Vice Chairman David Betras, who also is the county Democratic Party’s chairman. “Isn’t that weird?”
The party endorsed Macejko.
Provisional ballots are cast by those whose voter eligibility is in question, such as failing to provide proper identification or failing to provide a change of address or name to the elections board.
The board had to verify the eligibility of provisional ballots before they were counted.
Overall, 267 provisional ballots were approved and 40 were not.
The reason for disqualifying those 40 included voting in the wrong precincts, not being a registered voter or not having a correct address, said board Director Joyce Kale-Pesta.
Also Monday, the board certified the candidacy of Edward L. Goldner Jr. of Berlin Center as an independent candidate for the county commissioner seat currently occupied by John McNally IV of Youngstown. McNally isn’t seeking re-election.
Goldner will face Democrat David Ditzler, an Austintown trustee, Republican David V. Rossi of Boardman and Howard Markert of Youngstown, a Green Party candidate, in the general election.