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Director of Trumbull agency says she thinks ballot language dooms renewal
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The director of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board says that when she learned what the ballot language for her agency’s 10-year renewal levy looks like on absentee ballots, she concluded that the levy is doomed.
“I don’t think we have any chance of it passing after all the money we spent on this,” said Executive Director April Caraway.
The problem is that there is a “header” missing from the mental-health ballot issue, compared with ones for two other county renewal levies.
As a result, instead of saying Proposed Tax Levy (Renewal), Trumbull County, Mental Health and Recovery Board, and then information about the levy, it says: Proposed Tax Levy (Renewal), Trumbull County, and then information about the levy.
In other words, the header saying “Mental Health and Recovery Board” in larger type is not there.
The information about the levy in the smaller type says the levy is for the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board, but Caraway said she thinks many people won’t read that.
She said more than one person told her they could not find the mental health and recovery levy on their early-voting ballot, and she fears people will not realize that the levy is for mental health and recovery and just vote “no” out of confusion.
Caraway said several people were involved in preparing the ballot language, including the Trumbull County commissioners office and Trumbull County prosecutor’s office, but she and her board were not able to view the final ballot layout before it was implemented.
She will be seeking a determination from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office that voters at the polls on Nov. 4 be instructed to look for the mental health and recovery levy so that they don’t miss it.
Kelly Pallante, director of the elections board, said the board of elections followed its procedures.
“We always put it on the ballot as submitted by the entity,” she said, adding that the elections board sends the ballot language in the way it will appear on the ballot to the Secretary of State’s Office and then back to the “entity,” so that it has a chance to ask for changes.
Caraway says the “entity” that approved the layout apparently was the county commissioners’ office and prosecutor’s office.
Pallante said 9,000 absentee (paper) ballots have either gone in the mail or been voted at the elections board office, and the electronic ballots for Nov. 4 also are set.
“The ballot is what it is at this point,” Pallante said.
The levy generates $3,344,282 annually for alcohol- and drug-addiction programs and mental-health programs in the county.