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Summary

  • There were 64 absentee mail-in ballots rejected by the board for the Nov. 4 election.
  • Over 100 provisional ballots were rejected by the board for the Nov. 4 election.
  • Members approved the Board of Elections 2026 budget with the addition of the $30,000 for workstation upgrades to go to the Summit County Council meeting on Nov. 24. 

Follow-Up Questions

  • Is it the fault of the absentee voter if they mailed the ballot before the required postmarked date but it arrived more than four days after Election Day? Is this due to mail service delivery wait times increasing? [Editor’s note: The Ohio legislature this week voted to end the grace period for mail-in ballots]. 
  • The board approved a pay increase for a part-time staff person filling in for a full-time staff person during the election. Should there be a process in place to automatically approve a pay rate for filling in for full-time staff during the busy sessions of an election? 

Summit County Board of Elections notes

  • The Summit County Board of Elections (BOE) website can be found here. The livestream of the meeting can be found here.
  • The members of the board are as follows:
    • Ray Weber (Republican)
    • Bryan Williams (Republican) 
    • William Rich (Democrat), chair 
    • Valerie McKitrick (Democrat)
      _____
    • Pete Zeigler, deputy director
    • Lance Reed, director 
  • There were several employees, with a total of about 25 people in the room. The Nov. 3 agenda was still listed on the website at the time of the meeting, but the current agenda was available at the meeting. The board members had mics, but it was still difficult to hear them. The audio has improved from previous meetings, though.
  • Rich called the meeting to order at 9:02 a.m.
  • Motion to pay bills was approved.
  • Motion to pay payroll approved.
    • Pay period Oct. 20, 2025, through Nov. 2, 2025
    • Full time: $99,124,57
    • Part Time: $91,084.87
    • Overtime: $45,237.18
    • PEO: $258,255.25

Signature and ID common errors for rejected ballots

  • Certify Absentee Ballots from Nov. 4 general election (2:05 into video)
    • Line 1 ballot was returned without a stub. Ballot rejected.
    • Lines 2-6: Ballots were returned with no ID envelopes. Ballots rejected.
    • Lines 7-8 Returned ballot in ID envelope but did not provide ID. Ballots rejected.
    • Lines 9-12: Failed to sign the ID envelope. Ballots rejected.
    • Line 13: Did not provide ID or signature. Ballot rejected.
    • Lines 14-24: The ID provided did not match ID on voter registration or the absentee application. Ballots rejected.
    • Lines 25-59. The postmark was late, either on or after Election Day. Ballots rejected.
    • Line 60. Ballot was received late and did not have a date. Ballot rejected.
    • Line 61-62 were postmarked timely but received after the deadline. Ballots rejected.
    • Lines 63-64 UOCAVA absentee ballots. (Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act) were received after the deadline. Ballots rejected.
  • Approval of Absentee remakes
    • 5 UOCAVA ballots. No questions of voter intent. Motion adopted without dissent.

Provisional ballot errors include wrong address

  • Certify Provisional Ballots from Nov. 4 general election (9:32 into the video)
    • Ballots 1-547: All requirements were met. Ballots were approved.
    • Ballots 548-549: Wrong address provided. Ballots rejected.
    • Ballots 550-551: No date of birth provided. Rich said the PEO should have checked that everything was complete. Ballots rejected.
    • Ballot 552 No matching signature. Ballot rejected.
    • Ballot 553-555: Voters voted in absentee, it was returned and counted. Ballots rejected.
    • 556-575: There was no voter ID provided or the license was expired, or did not match voter registration, or the box was not checked for checking a voter ID. Failure to provide proper voter ID. The software includes it all under the same code. There is no provision to provide information to the voter that their vote will not count or notify ahead of time. They will receive a notice after the election that their vote did not count. Rich wanted to make sure it was a failure to provide IDs and not just a PEO mistake. Ballots rejected.
    • 576-581 The voter failed to sign the envelope. Rich said the PEO should have checked to see if the voter signed. Rich asked the deputy director to follow up. Ballots rejected.
    • 582-591: Right location, wrong precinct. PEO handed the voter the wrong ballot. Rich asked the deputy director to follow up since there were 10 issues. Ballots were offered as a remake. 
    • 592-636: Voters not registered in Ohio to vote. Ballots rejected.
    • 637-650. Voters went to the wrong location. In each instance it should be noted if the voter refused to go to the right location, otherwise it was the PEO mistake. The PEO should have directed them to the right location. Rich asked the deputy director to follow up on this. Ballots rejected.
Signal background

Board approves computer purchases, discusses 2026 budget

  • Computer purchase
    • There were two quotes for computer purchases. The current computers are more than five years old. Rich asked if this was a budgeted item. Reed said it would come out of the capital expenditure budget, which is set at $230,000. Some money has been spent from this budget, but it comes under what is budgeted. The board approved the lowest bid. 
  • 2026 budget request (27:56 into video)
    • Officials will present the budget to Summit County Council on Monday. 
    • They are waiting for a final quote for contract services server upgrade for workstation upgrades. The board asked for an estimate of the cost.
      • 10 computers can be used as an upload station or central count station
      • Officials dedicate five physical scanners to scanning. 
      • They can repurpose scanners as uploaders. 
      • The staff would like to increase the upload center to 20, with five scanning still in place. 
      • Net increase of 10, with five more on the way from the grant to bring the total to 20.
      • Estimate is a total of $30,000.
    • Approved the budget request with additional line item of $30,000 estimate for the workstation upgrades. 

Provisional ballot remakes approved

  • Approval of provisional remakes (41:41 into video)
    • Staff wasn’t quite ready, so they took a few minutes to go over other business and then the board came back to this agenda item. 
    • Staff presented the remakes to the board. 
    • The board approved the remakes. 
  • Other business that might rightfully come before the board 
    • Reed asked the board for guidance to close the office early at noon on Dec. 17 for the staff luncheon. Board approved.
    • Reed said there was a part-time staff member filling in for a PEO staff member during the election. Would the board allow part-time hourly rate to increase if they are filling in for a staff member? Williams made a motion to authorize the part-time employee equal-to-election-pay while filling in the full-time role. 
  • Adjourned at 9:59 a.m.
  • Next scheduled meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025

Akron Documenters trains and pays residents to document local government meetings with notes and live-tweet threads. We then make those meeting summaries available as a new public record.