MOUNT VERNON – The 6.65% turnout for the May 2 special election in Knox County was slightly lower than what the county has seen historically, according to Knox Elections Director James Blazer, but it wasn’t necessarily a surprise.
With no primaries in the county and a lack of countywide elections, falling below the 9% turnout seen in these off-year elections was not unexpected, he said. In addition, a lack of promotion of the ballot measures may have affected interest. Of the 41,595 registered voters, 2,766 participated in the election.
Early voting seemed significant, though rain on election day might have affected turnout, he said.
If the public had more knowledge of the specific initiatives and issues on the ballot, more interest might be gained, he said.
Blazer’s office confirmed on its website that the Ohio Legislature set an Aug. 8 election to consider a statewide constitutional amendment to require a vote of at least 60% of electors to approve any constitutional amendment and to modify the procedures for an initiative petition proposing a constitutional amendment.
Blazer said he doesn’t expect a big impact on the county or the Knox County Board of Elections from this election. He said the legislature will make an appropriation to fund election costs so it doesn’t affect the county budget. However, it does tighten up what the staff can do this summer. But he said they are ready to run another election and began that work right after the May 2 election.
“Literally the next day, we started working on things because we anticipated that there would be the possibility of this August election special election,” Blazer said.
Early voting will start July 11 for that special election on a similar schedule to previous elections, with Saturday and Sunday voting and closure of the office the Monday before the election to allow his staff time to deploy to the county’s 28 precincts.
Blazer said the county depends on a lot of temporary staff for elections.
“Even though we were at a single polling location, it took a lot of a lot of staff temporary staff to pull off an election, just as it will here, August,” he said.
Between 170 to 200 temporary poll workers will be employed. He said they couldn’t run the election without them and appreciated them.
Most, but not all, measures on the ballot were approved, according to unofficial results.
Voters in Morris approved a tax levy with a 58 to 35 vote.
The Northridge Local School District’s proposed tax levy also was passed with a four-vote margin of 32-28.
A proposed tax levy for the Central Ohio Joint Fire District was approved with 218 votes, 15 more than those voting against it.
A proposed sales and use tax for Knox County easily passed with 2,068 votes for and 697 against.
A local liquor option in Centerburg was defeated, with 43 voting no and 25 voting yes.
A similar vote was flipped in Fredericktown B, with 44 voters approving the local liquor option and 24 against it. A Sunday sales option also passed, with 39 voters saying yes and 29 voting no.
Only two Knox County residents of Utica Village voted on a proposed tax levy, taking opposite sides with their votes. But 135 Licking County residents of the village voted for the tax levy, with only 62 voting against it. With 136 total yes votes and 63 no votes, the measure passed in unofficial returns.
