Letter to the editor: Election workers did excellent job in 2020

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 1, 2021

To the citizens of Lawrence County,
I would like you to know of the outstanding job done by the staff of the Board of Elections, the seasonal employees and the poll workers.
Staff:
Cathy Snider, director, Toni Bradshaw, deputy director Jeri Holzhauser, clerk, and Monica Robinson, clerk
Seasonal employees:
Susan Arthurs. Christina Smith. Nancy Norris. Justin Brooks, Karen Musser Sharon Crager. Karen Workman and Joan Freeman.
These individuals worked 27 straight days, sometimes 10 hours or more per day.
The board had 6,376 walk-ins for early voting. There were 8,668 absentee ballots sent by mail. Each absentee ballot returned had two envelopes. All of these had to be processed by hand, as the mechanical device cuts the ballots and 16,254 were opened by hand. All absentee ballots were not returned.
These numbers do not include the numerous phone calls and walk-ins with questions. In addition, our 257 poll workers worked very hard on Election Day to deal with the biggest turn out in history.
As chair of the board, I cannot personally thank them enough.
Ohio Law requires the board of elections, the board staff, the seasonal employees and poll workers to be an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. The spirit of cooperation and joint effort to do the job was remarkable.
America should take a lesson from them.

Craig A. Allen
Chair, Lawrence County Board of Elections

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