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Four Warren Democrats removed from May ballot, three from 4th Ward
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Four Democratic candidates for Warren City Council were removed from the May 2 ballot Tuesday when the Trumbull County Board of Elections met to certify candidates.
Three of the four had intended to run for Warren City Council’s 4th Ward, leaving just one candidate, Mark Forte, still in the race instead of four.
The 4th Ward seat is open because James Bluedorn recently gave it up in order to move to Florida for a new job. The Trumbull County Democratic Party’s Central Committee for the 4th Ward elected Forte Tuesday night to hold the seat the rest of 2017.
It is Forte’s first time running for political office. He is a 35-year employee of GM Lordstown who serves in the bargaining unit, having negotiated two labor agreements, he said.
Sher-Ree D. Glover, Ronald Book and Pierson J. Butcher Jr., were all removed from the ballot earlier Tuesday. For Glover, the reason was that errors on her nominating petitions left them with too few valid signatures.
For Book, it was because his petitions only said he was running for “Council,” but it didn’t say 4th Ward. For Butcher, it was his admission to elections board workers that he had not lived in the 4th Ward for at least one year, said Stephanie Penrose, elections board director.
Butcher, who was on the short end of a 4-0 vote total with Forte on Tuesday night, said he has appealed the elections board’s decision to remove him from the ballot.
The fourth person who was removed from the ballot was D’Andre Bowers, who was trying to run for the 5th Ward, but he turned in an insufficient number of valid signatures, the elections board said.
There are still two other Democrats on the ballot for the 5th Ward seat: Bob Moody and Ken MacPherson.
The board certified all other candidates and issues.
The board also took steps to reduce the number of polling locations in Warren by three and in Champion by two for the May 2 election as part of a plan to test the use of the board’s new electronic poll books.
Electronic poll books, which work a little like the credit-card reader at the store, speed up the check-in process for voters, reduces poll-worker errors and voting in the wrong location, said Alan Shaker, deputy elections board director.
There still will be 33 precincts in Warren and Champion, but the polling locations at the Packard Shelter House, Emmanuel Lutheran Church and New Hope Free Methodist Church in Warren will not be used, nor will the ones at St. John Lutheran Church and Champion Middle School in Champion. Affected voters will be notified by mail.
One reason the polling places will be reduced is to reduce the number of electronic poll books needed, Shaker said. The electronic poll books will be used in all precincts in November.