GOP members block elections board’s ad spending

Republican members of the Franklin County Board of Elections blocked a plan Wednesday to spend up to $275,000 to advertise the November general election and the start of early voting next week.

GOP member Brad Sinnott said he couldn’t support spending a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer money — roughly five times the annual budget of the typical area household — to advertise what is shaping up to be a highly publicized election.

The vote on the advertising plan was 2-2, with both Sinnott and board Chairman Douglas Preisse, the other Republican member, opposed, and Kimberly Marinello and Michael Sexton, the two Democratic members, supporting.

The tie means that the plan was rejected, although the board is allowed to take up the issue again.

Deputy Director David Payne said the elections board approved advertising spending of about $658,000 in 2014 and about $325,000 in 2016. This year’s plan called for about $200,000 for television advertising, $30,000 for radio and $15,000 for print, plus about $30,000 for related consultant work.

Director Ed Leonard said ads were supposed to start Tuesday, the day before early voting begins, and run for about a week, informing residents about the location and hours of the earlyvoting center, with hopes of promoting early ballots.

But Sinnott said the secretary of state’s office has sent notices and absentee-ballot applications to all registered voters statewide, including the 850,000-plus in Franklin County.

Preisse said there tens of millions of dollars probably will be spent in central Ohio as part of political campaigns, meaning the election will be well-publicized.

Marinello acknowledged that voters will be inundated with campaign materials, but she said they probably would disregard many of those materials. She said the secretary of state’s mailing did not include specific information about Franklin County’s early in-person voting site on Morse Road.

Sexton said the proposed advertising spending this year was significantly less than before the previous midterm election in 2014.

After the meeting, the county Republican Party issued a statement noting that neither Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) nor Hamilton County (Cincinnati), the second- and third-largest counties in the state, buy TV ads informing voters about the election.

Preisse said in the statement that the county commissioners have told the board of elections “to contain spending because the county is cash-strapped.”

“Given the county’s circumstances, we can’t afford to spend more than a quarter million dollars telling people what they already know,” he said.