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How local election officials in Ohio are ensuring voting safety and integrity.

Posted on by L. Dreeye
How local election officials in Ohio are ensuring voting safety and integrity.

Akron Beacon Journal Editorial Board
| Akron-Beacon Magazine

As Election Day approaches on November 5th, you may be facing some challenges.

Worrying about whether your hometown tax will pass, whether your taxes will go up, or whether the candidate you support will win and what the consequences might be.

While we unfortunately have no antidote to these concerns, we can try to reassure you about at least one thing: the security and integrity of elections.

Across the region and state, election officials are working hard to ensure elections remain fair, free and secure while managing ever-changing voting requirements, technology and threats.

Each state board of elections has two Republican members and two Democratic members who oversee elections, ensuring a balance of bipartisanship.

Republicans and Democrats are present at every stage of the voting process, from the opening of polling places on Election Day to the collection and counting of votes that night.

As a Beacon Journal reporter discovered when he went behind the scenes of the 2021 election in Summit County, ballots are being carefully tracked and “there is a contingency plan and playbook for almost every eventuality, even a complete network outage.”

Voting equipment also needs to be updated regularly to ensure it is up to date and working properly. Summit County, for example, installed new voting machines last year that still require voters to fill out paper ballots.

If you voted by mail, this shouldn’t bother you either. The process of counting those votes is also thorough and secure, with cameras constantly monitoring locked ballot drop boxes and bipartisan groups working together to ensure mail-in ballots are cast by the correct holders.

Anyone who voted early, by mail or in person, can check the status of their ballot at ohiosos.gov/elections/voters/toolkit/ballot-tracking to ensure their vote has been received and processed. The state also maintains a database of absentee and early voting data, tracking the number of ballots requested and returned and more.

Election workers also help keep Election Day running smoothly as they help oversee nearly 40,000 poll workers across the state, with more than 2,500 in the greater Akron and Canton area, according to a nifty state election worker tracker.

Those in charge of training poll workers are also conscientious, teaching prospects how to be prepared for every possible scenario on Election Day and reaffirming bipartisanship, Canton Repository columnist Charita Ghoshay discovered while participating in the training.

In addition to local officials, other agencies are involved in ensuring the integrity and security of local elections.

It’s encouraging to see the U.S. Department of Justice getting involved in elections in Portage County, where Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski became a source of controversy after he suggested in a now-deleted Facebook post that people record their neighbors’ addresses with Kamala Harris’ yard signs. so that illegal immigrants can move into these houses. The Portage Board of Elections has since relieved the sheriff’s office of security duties during early voting, opting instead to use private security or local police departments.

And if you’re concerned about voter fraud, look no further than Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who told the Columbus Dispatch that “this is not a problem that’s gotten out of hand” after six people out of millions were found to have voted. illegally in the previous election and are now facing charges. One of these people subsequently died.

“This is not something that the government is not doing anything about or not paying attention to,” he said. “All these things happen. They are few and far between and the people involved are being held accountable.”

According to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, numerous reports have shown that voter fraud is rare in the United States, and many cases of alleged fraud turn out to be errors by voters or administrators.

There are checks and balances in place throughout the state so you can vote with confidence. If you haven’t already, be sure to take advantage of this opportunity no later than November 5, when polls open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.

This article was written by Akron Beacon Opinion and Community Engagement Editor Teresa Bennett on behalf of the magazine’s editorial board. Mayak magazine. Editorials provide fact-based assessments of issues important to the communities we serve. This is not the opinion of our staff, who strive to be neutral in their reporting.