Chaos evident before postponed primary
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office gave Ohio boards of elections incorrect information Monday evening about a judge’s ruling, setting off a chain reaction that led to confusion among the public and local elections workers about whether polls would open as scheduled the next morning.
The erroneous message came less than 12 hours before polls were to open. In it, LaRose said: “Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge (Richard) Frye granted plaintiffs order in Judy Brachman and Jill Reardon v. Ohio Secretary of State. There will be no election tomorrow. We will provide details regarding the order as soon as humanly possible.”
That email hit inboxes at 6:59 p.m., right around the same time the judge was issuing his decision.
Problem was, Frye actually had denied the order, not granted it.
The Franklin County Board of Elections acted quickly after LaRose’s message, telling poll workers to stand down.
A couple of hours later, after the secretary of state’s missive was corrected, the board called poll workers back to say the election was still on.
Then nearly an hour anda-half later, the board called them yet again with word the election was canceled — this time for real.
Other county elections boards across Ohio went through the same chaos as conflicting reports went out to the public.
Elections officials were in the dark for hours until Ohio Health Director Dr. Amy Acton issued an order to close the polls and LaRose directed local boards of elections to comply.
“Everyone was trying to make split-second decisions with the best information they had,” said Aaron Ockerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. “Certainly not interested in pointing fingers or blame or whatever. Clearly there was conflicting information.”
LaRose said the “buck stops here” when it comes to assigning blame for the incorrect information sent to boards. But he also thinks he was explicit from the time he and Gov. Mike DeWine stepped in front of the cameras just before 3 p.m. Monday
that it was unsafe to have in-person voting Tuesday.
“We were clear from the beginning. My guidance to the boards of elections was consistent all along that there would be no election in-person voting on Tuesday, March 17,” he said.
But on Monday, LaRose and DeWine had both said they wouldn’t try to predict how a judge would rule. And when asked what would happen if the judge ruled against stopping Election Day, LaRose said, “So if that was necessitated, I have no doubt that the patriotic Ohio election officials would get that job done.”
As confusion reigned Monday night, both LaRose and his spokespersons did not respond to emails and text messages from The Dispatch asking if the Tuesday election was still on. He granted an interview to CNN at 10:33 p.m.
The erroneous message from LaRose’s office was part of a chaotic three hours that left voters, local elections officials and about 35,000 poll workers in limbo as the state scrambled to put out a plan for Election Day hours before the polls opened. It capped a shocking day that had started with plans to announce curbside voting for those who did not want to enter polling places Tuesday.
Here is the timeline that The Dispatch was able to reconstruct from Monday:
■ 2:53 p.m.: LaRose and
DeWine’s 2 p.m. news conference starts nearly an hour late. DeWine announces he is advising people age 65 or older to isolate themselves and that it is unsafe to hold the election Tuesday. A lawsuit would be forthcoming from voters, they said, and LaRose said he had directed Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, acting as his office’s lawyer, not to challenge the lawsuit.
■ 3:22 p.m.: LaRose’s office sends an email to boards of elections to tell them that, after being committed to plans to hold in-person voting on Tuesday, the “situation has evolved.” He wrote that DeWine and Acton had determined it was “impossible for Ohio to hold in-person voting on Tuesday” and that he expected legal challenges to the decision.
“We are prepared to provide clear guidance to all of you and to voters about what comes next,” LaRose wrote.
5:37 p.m.: Judith Brachman and Jill Reardon file a complaint against the Ohio secretary of state in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. The lawsuit alleged that holding Election Day on Tuesday would force both of them to choose between their health and their constitutional right to vote.
■ 5:54 p.m.: Amanda Grandjean, LaRose’s elections director, sends an email to boards of elections with copies of the lawsuit and other documents filed in court. “We look forward to speaking with you shortly.”
■ 6:27 p.m.: Frye begins his hearing in the case by pointing out that the dangers of the coronavirus had been known for months and that the plaintiffs “have not acted in a timely manner.”
■ 6:59 p.m.: Grandjean emails boards of elections to tell them (incorrectly) that Frye had granted the order sought by two elderly voters to stop the election on Tuesday. “There will be no election tomorrow. We will provide further details regarding the order as soon as humanly possible.”
At that point, it was the only written message to local boards of elections on Monday that directly said in-person voting on Tuesday would not happen.
“As we’ve gone back and reviewed that night, there was one piece of false information,” LaRose said. “We regret that.”
“Within 10 minutes we said we had bad information,” he said. “But all along I had never entertained the notion that the polls would be open on Tuesday. I had been very clear to everybody around me and to the boards to the extent I could that the decision had been made that it was not safe for Ohioans as voters or as poll workers on Tuesday.”
■ 7 p.m.: Around this time, Frye denies the request for a temporary restraining order to stop in-person voting on Tuesday.
“The notion that we postpone the primary ... presupposes that the health situation in America gets better. We have no medical evidence here today to suggest that will be the case,” Frye said.
The judge added that he was reluctant to undermine Ohio law when the legislature, which sets the election date, had not reconvened and the governor had not called on them to do so. “There are too many factors to balance in this uncharted territory to say that we ought to take it away from the legislature and elected statewide officials and throw it to a Common Pleas Court judge in Columbus with 12 hours to go before the election,” he said.
LaRose said Thursday he and others were “shocked” by the court’s decision.
“We thought that they would realize that you can’t hold an election with 20% of the population being told they can’t leave their homes. That’s a clear Equal Protection violation,” he said. “If you allowed elections to go forward on a day when the governor was telling people they may not leave their homes unless they’re absolutely necessitated to, it would be the largest act of voter suppression that ever happened. You can’t do that.”
■ 7:09 p.m.: Grandjean starts to walk back her previous message. “This email was based on information from the Ohio attorney general and may not be final. We will respond as soon as possible with additional information,” the message read. But it does not say the election is back on.
■ 7:11 p.m.: The Franklin County Board of Elections sends a text message to poll workers telling them that Tuesday’s primary was moved to June 2 “per Gov. DeWine & SOS LaRose. There will be no voting tomorrow at any Franklin County Polling location.” The board of elections would tear down any equipment poll workers already had set up, the message said.
“Unfortunately there were different messages from different boards about what was going on because we were seeing lots of different information. Most boards I would say attempted to keep their poll workers on hold and kept them on standby,” Ockerman said.
■ 7:37 p.m.: Franklin County elections officials send an email to poll workers informing them that the election was off. “There will not be any polling locations open tomorrow in Franklin County, therefore do not show up to serve as a Precinct Election Official.”
■ 7:53 p.m.: Grandjean formally corrects the mistake from 6:59 p.m. “The previous email was sent based on inaccurate information provided to our office including from an erroneous media report. The judge denied the (temporary restraining order). Governor DeWine and Secretary LaRose are working through next steps. We will update you as soon as possible.” The media report came from Hannah News Service in an email update at 6:53 p.m., before Frye made his decision, according to LaRose’s office. CNN also reported the ruling incorrectly.
■ 9:01 p.m.: Poll workers in Franklin County receive an email telling them that the order has been denied and that “poll workers should prepare to report.” The board encourages poll workers to monitor texts and emails for further updates.
■ 10:26 p.m.: Grandjean sends county elections boards a copy of Acton’s order to close the polls.
■ 10:30 p.m.: LaRose’s office sends his directive to boards of elections. It tells boards to comply with Acton’s order, extend absentee balloting and to prepare to hold an in-person election June 2