Trumbull elections board certifies Nov. 8 results, gives day and a half off

Staff report

WARREN

The Trumbull County Board of Elections on Wednesday certified the results of the Nov. 8 election with no changes in the outcomes reported election night.

None of the candidate races or issues was close enough to qualify for an automatic recount, said Stephanie Penrose, board of elections director.

The board also approved a day and a half off for elections board workers Dec. 29 and Dec. 30.

The county gives all county workers a half day off Dec. 30, so the extra day and a half will cause the board offices to be closed two full days before the New Year’s Eve holiday.

“It’s a common practice around the state to give [elections] workers a day off for all their hard work,” Penrose said.

The elections board staff has worked 45 consecutive days because of the extra work load caused by the primary election Nov. 8, Penrose said. Many of the days they worked were 12 hours, and election day was 24 hours, she said.

The state mandates that the office work weekends leading up to the election and also the weekend after the election to allow people to “cure” any defects in their ballots.

No one used the weekend after the election to address defects, but elections workers still had work to do to verify provisional ballots, Penrose said.

Some staff members also worked last weekend to meet the four-day deadline to prepare the results for certification. They were allowed to begin the preparation Nov. 19.