The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Elections Board lauds Lakeland’s teamwork
Community college’s help providing safe environment bolstered ‘successful’ process
The college’s HIVE makerspace created Plexiglass barriers to create a safe voting environment.
Before early voting got underway this year, officials were making plans to ensure the Lake County Elections Board offices were outfitted to provide as safe an environment as possible.
In addition to county administration center personnel sanitizing and working to follow mandated safety protocols, Avery Dennison played a part in the efforts, contributing multiple printed floor graphics materials traditionally utilized in many high-traffic environments for wayfinding or promotional purposes.
Having a presidential election during a pandemic was an unprecedented situation that required a host of additional factors to be considered, officials noted.
Lakeland Community College, seemingly not missing a beat, also worked to facilitate in creating a safe space which contributed to a record-breaking turnout at the elections board.
Realizing its community neighbor could use some help in preparation, Lakeland President Morris Beverage Jr. reached out to Elections Board Director Ross McDonald to offer college resources in assisting with the creation of protective barriers.
“Our staff at Lakeland’s makerspace, known as HIVE, had just spent months making plexiglass partitions for classrooms and offices throughout campus,” Beverage said.
“In just a short period of time, they became design experts and were able to fabricate the barriers on HIVE machinery and install them throughout campus. So it made sense to offer this resource to the board of elections.”
With an opportunity to lend their expertise, staff members were led by HIVE Maker Lead
Owen Schoeniger, creating the barriers in only 10 hours. The college donated 15 units to help keep separation between election officials and voters at the administration building.
“This operation was able to be successful because of teamwork and cooperation of Lake County agencies,” McDonald said. “The plexiglass barriers were essen
tial to protecting our election officials who interacted with over 31,000 in-person early voters over a 29-day period, actually, closer to 32,000, in fact, when counting voters who brought in provisional ballots instead of casting (ballots) on the machine.”
Additionally, during each election cycle, the board trains between 700 to 1,000 precinct elec
tion officials to support the Election Day voting process.
T ra d it iona lly conduc t ed through in-person training with around 40 attendees per class, development of an online program was employed instead to accomplish the task due to the novel coronavirus and, consequently, classroom size limitations.
“We purchased a camcorder and began filming our training videos, but we were uncertain how to go about editing and producing the content, so we reached out to Lakeland for help,” McDonald said.
Schoeniger was once again able to help, providing the elections board with a laptop equipped with video editing software as well as tips on how to use it.
“Having access to this laptop and software enabled us to develop a very professional-looking online training for approximately 400 experienced precinct election officials,” McDonald said.
“Furthermore, this freed-up our in-person training courses for new election officials who really needed hands-on training. It’s really a great resource right in our backyard.”
Officials added the college’s efforts allowed the elections board to redirect funding to other critical areas, such as temporary employee payroll and additional personal protective equipment for workers.
“Lakeland’s generosity has made a huge and positive impact in the 2020 presidential election in Lake County,” McDonald said.
“We applaud Lakeland Community College for making the decision to use their campus resources and talented employees to support this historic election.
Through this process, we had private-sector support and we public-sector cooperation, and we really are thankful because without all of those key relationships, we could not have been as successful as we were.”