Results of tight races due today
The U.S. presidential election wasn't the only cliffhanger that dragged out through November.
After two weeks of uncertainty, Gahanna-area voters will soon know the fate of a school levy and bond issue package that was too close to call on Election Day.
And though it won't affect the Ohio Senate's overwhelming Republican majority, the outcome of the 16th district's razor-thin race in western Franklin County will also finally become official.
The Franklin County Board of Elections will meet at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to certify the official results of the Nov. 3 general election.
The board has met over Zoom video calls several times in the past week in preparation, spokesman Aaron Sellers said. That meant reviewing nearly 19,000 provisional ballots — cast by voters whose eligibility must be resolved — and tallying the less than 500 mail-in absentee ballots that arrived within the 10-day window after Election Day long stipulated by Ohio law.
The board approved nearly 15,300
provisional ballots.
Typically, those steps would occur during one meeting in person, which spans an entire day. Instead, the board decided to piecemeal them into separate virtual meetings because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sellers said.
The post-election procedures also included "remaking" about 6,000 absentee ballots that voters cast on incorrect ballots, stemming from an equipment error that resulted in nearly 50,000 incorrect ballots being mailed to voters in October. Despite the board mailing new, corrected ballots to them, about 6,000 voters didn't use them, meaning their original votes had to be hand-transferred to a correct ballot to be counted, Sellers said.
That included 286 ballots in the Gahanna-jefferson school district, he said.
Any newly counted ballots will be added to the certified election results to be released on Wednesday. As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, the board had approved an additional 504 provisional ballots in the Gahanna school district and 4,096 in the Senate District 16 race, Sellers said.
Another 189 had yet to be counted, though it wasn't yet known where they were cast in Franklin County, he said.
In the Gahanna-jefferson school district, just two votes out of more than 28,000 were tipping the scales in favor of Issue 22 on Election Day, with 14,097 of voters supporting it and 14,095 against it.
If voters approve the issue, it would
fund construction of a new high school and the expansion of several other school facilities. It would also generate additional revenue to maintain the facilities and to enhance the district's operating budget.
The 10.69-mill package would cost district residents an additional $374 per year for every $100,000 in assessed property value.
If it fails, however, the district will need to make about $3.3 million in budget cuts. Officials declined to comment on specifics Monday.
In the Senate District 16 race, incumbent Stephanie Kunze, a Hilliard Republican, was just 41 votes ahead of Democrat challenger Crystal Lett for a seat representing the suburbs sur
rounding western Columbus on Election Day. More than 205,000 people cast a vote in the race.
If Kunze wins, Senate Republicans will expand their majority to 25, while Democrats will hold eight seats.
If Lett wins, she would be the district's first Democratic state senator since the 1980s.
In Ohio, any local election decided by less than half of 1% of votes triggers an automatic recount of ballots. For a statewide election, the margin is less than one-fourth of 1%.
Whether a recount is needed is determined after all eligible votes have been tallied, Sellers said. awidmanneese@dispatch.com @Alissawidman