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Voting precincts must be cut
On the side
Think before you speak: People say the dumbest things. When they are heads of big business testifying in front of Congress, a politician or celebrity on social media, or a company rolling out an advertising campaign, those dumb statements or decisions can easily become national news.
With that in mind, comes AvoidtheApology.com. Those involved in the new venture include Mark Weaver, an attorney and crisis communications adviser who also serves as U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson’s campaign consultant and has done the same for several Mahoning Valley Republicans, primarily judges, over the years.
Before talking to Congress or launching a major ad campaign, AvoidtheApology.com will meet with clients and point out potential pitfalls, Weaver said. “We can look at it from different perspectives. The goal is to avoid saying something that requires an apology. If we can’t foresee it and something happens, we’ll give clients their money back.”
Cutting voting precincts is typically a slow process for several reasons – primarily objections from those who believe it makes it harder for people to vote.
Even if we didn’t have ridiculously low voter turnout for every election, except in presidential years, that argument wouldn’t be valid in Mahoning County.
The county’s board of elections will have a public hearing at 5 p.m. Wednesday to discuss the final phase of a two-part 61- precinct reduction plan this year.
Before the primary, the board cut 32 precincts in Youngstown, going from 77 to 45, and three from Struthers, leaving that city with 12 precincts.
The next step is to get rid of 26 precincts in the suburbs before the November general election.
The biggest declines will be in Boardman – going from 47 to 37 precincts – and in Austintown – dropping from 40 to 33.
Check out the maps
The maps of the proposed cuts can be viewed online on the board’s homepage: vote.mahoningcountyoh.gov. Wait for the “precinct reduction/adjustment proposals” link to come up and click on it.
In addition to Austintown and Boardman, other cuts are in Poland Township, Campbell, Canfield city, Beaver and Milton. The latter two will lose one precinct each. Campbell and Canfield will lose two each, and Poland Township is slated to lose three precincts.
This will leave the county with 212 voting precincts. Before a 104-precinct cut in 2001, the county had 416 precincts. There were small reductions in 2006 and 2012.
Even with these reductions, 212 precincts is still too many for the county.
For years, Mahoning has had the lowest average number of voters per precinct, 623, among the state’s 13 most-populous counties. This reduction increases the average to 788. That seems like a lot, but Mahoning will only be the second-lowest in terms of average number of voters per precinct among the same counties.
Trumbull County used to be second behind Mahoning in terms of average voters per precinct.
But before this most- recent primary, Trumbull’s board of elections reduced the number of voting precincts by 38, from 208 to 170. It will cut an additional 13 in time for the general election leaving it with 157 precincts.
That will increase the average number of voters per precinct in Trumbull County to 921. It was 721 before the 51-precinct reduction.
While 921 voters per precinct isn’t a magic number, for Mahoning County to reach it 31 additional precincts would need to be cut.
Each precinct reduction saves about $1,200 a year.
While Mahoning will save $73,200 in those years with countywide primaries and a general election by eliminating 61 precincts, there is more money to be saved.
Polling locations
Additional precincts can be cut, particularly those that are in the same polling locations as other precincts.
The argument about waiting in line is a weak one.
Turnout for the November 2014 election in Mahoning County was 41.5 percent. It was 29.5 percent in November 2013.
Turnout for the 2012 presidential election was 72.2 percent, but there were very few complaints about long lines, in part, because of early voting.
There will be fewer precincts in 2016 than 2012. But with the second lowest voters per precinct among the largest counties, voters in Mahoning shouldn’t have a problem at the polls. Besides most of them vote only once every four years.