SIDNEY — The Shelby County Board of Elections held the audit for the May 3 primary election on Monday, June 13, during their regular meeting.
Every board of election in Ohio is required to use either a percentage-based post-election audit, or a risk-limiting audit. The Shelby County Board of Elections conducted their audit by three precincts that made up a percentage of the overall election. The audit was completed by one democrat and one republican in each precinct represented at the audit. Six election officials in total participated in Wednesday’s audit of the election.
The three precincts present during the audit were precinct 5, Sidney 2B; precinct 10 Sidney 4A; and precinct 15, Cynthian Township East. Each precinct passed their audit.
During the meeting, the first approval for voting equipment allocation was met in a unanimous vote. The Shelby County BOE also unanimously passed a motion approving the ballot order for the Aug. 2 special election. According to Director Pam Kerrigan, the allocation of voting equipment is the same as the May 2 primary, and the only difference in the ballot order between the primary and the special election is that up to 50 ballots have been added to the ballot order in anticipation of more voter turnout. Enough ballots have been purchased to cover 25% of voter turnout; a total of 23.51% of registered voters in Shelby County voted in the May 3 primary.
The Shelby County BOE also discussed their public records request policy, with Board Member Merill Asher expressing interest in updating the current policy to be more specific and help both the BOE and citizens requesting information in filling those requests more timely and with ease.
“With as many organizations that, at times, bombard this office with requests, and to be specific, we need to put a policy together that we can send to them and say, this is our policy, this is what you need to fill out and return it,” Asher said.
Board Chairman James Kerg suggested Asher work with Kerrigan and Deputy Director Collin Claywell to draft a new policy that could be brought before the board before the July meeting.
In other business, the board:
• Announced the Logic and Accuracy Testing set for June 22;
• Announced that the contract and agreement for the new Election Systems & Software E-poll Books has been signed and that the board is waiting on an invoice to make the first down payment;
• Everyone interested in attending Summer Conference 2022 has been registered;
• Kerrigan and Claywell are registered for virtual registered election official classes; and
• Approved the bills for audit.
The next meeting of the Shelby County BOE will be held Monday, July 11, at 10 a.m.
