Secretary of State Jon Husted should intervene — once again — in the Lucas County Board of Elections political chaos to thwart a return to the circus atmosphere of two years ago.
Mr. Husted surely spends more time dealing with Lucas County election issues than problems in any of the other 87 Ohio counties, which is unfortunate.
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After removing three board members in 2014 because of what the secretary determined was unprofessional infighting and chaos, it seems that the same political games are threatening to return the elections office to turmoil once again. He must not let that happen.
Republican board members James Hartley and Bruce Saferin recently nominated a new director, Anson Bowe, to replace current director Gina Kaczala, with whom Mr. Hartley has tangled for nearly two years.
Failing to get enough votes to either hire Mr. Bowe or retain Ms. Kaczala, the board has been forced to turn to Mr. Husted to break its 2-2 tie on the matter.
Before the meeting was over, board members showed more of the infantile shenanigans we’d hoped they left in the past. They bickered over a motion to ban cell phones because Democrats were unhappy that Republicans were allegedly receiving texted instructions from Lucas County Republican Chairman Jon Stainbrook — one of the board members ousted by Mr. Husted in 2014.
Mr. Bowe, a former tugboat engineer who recently moved to South Toledo from Delta after being approached about the elections job, has very limited related experience. He worked briefly as a paralegal for the elections board in Chicago.
Ms. Kaczala certainly has more experience, but Mr. Hartley has expressed reasonable concerns about errors under her watch. In the November, 2015, election, the names of two candidates for offices in Sylvania Township were accidentally omitted from the Sylvania city ballot. Last March, a data card from the Mott Branch Library was excluded from the vote count.
Mr. Husted has the authority to reject any candidate he thinks isn’t qualified, and he should do so. Indeed, he must insist on a highly qualified candidate. Well-run elections with unimpeachably accurate results are too important to risk returning to the disarray of the past.
First Published March 13, 2017, 4:00 a.m.