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ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- The Belmont County Board of Elections officially wrapped up the primary election Monday and is making ready for a special, statewide August election that will have an impact on the Ohio Constitution.
The board began by certifying the primary election that occurred May 2. The fairly small election involved only 17 of 70 precincts, and Elections Director Aaron Moore said the only change to results was the addition of three provisional ballots.
A total of 1,162 ballots were cast out of 11,410 registered voters in these precincts, or 6.76 percent or those eligible to vote. The election approved a new levy for the Cumberland Trail Fire District to make upgrades to the firehouse. Voters rejected a levy for Barnesville Memorial Park. Liquor options were approved for the Cracker Barrel and Newellstown Diner in the St. Clairsville/Richland Township area, and Sunday sales for the Newellstown Diner.
“That is the official results,” he said.
Meanwhile, the board is preparing for Aug. 8, following the decision on May 10 by the Ohio General Assembly to file Amended Substitute Senate Joint Resolution 2, which proposes an amendment to the state constitution requiring any future amendment to be approved by at least 60 percent of voters. The amendment also makes two changes to the initiative petition process for proposing amendments to the state constitution. This would eliminate the 10-day cure period to gather additional signatures and to require petition signatures from at least 5 percent of electors of each county in the state, instead of half of the counties. If the proposed amendment is approved by a majority vote of the electors, it takes effect immediately. However, the new requirements for initiative petitions proposing constitutional amendments would first apply to petitions filed after Jan. 1, 2024.
Moore noted that currently, amendments to the constitution require 51 percent of the vote. This will not impact elections other than for constitutional amendments.
“The house last week passed a joint amendment,” Moore said. “They’re going to put a resolution for the constitution on the ballot. … At this point, we are still waiting to get more information from the secretary of state, but at this point we are calling out to our polling locations and we are reaching out to our poll workers to make sure we’re ready and prepared.”
The board hopes for a high rate of participation.
“I can’t really estimate how big it’s going to be, but this will have every precinct open and it is a statewide, so hopefully with statewide and all precincts open, it should have an increase compared to the last one,” Moore said. “We are always hoping for big turnouts. We will be reaching out. We’d like to get the public aware that we are having an August special election, and I do believe the state as well as both pro and con people for the amendment will be reaching out in advertisements.”
He said staff will be preparing for the day.
“Until we get more information and see how things will be, we are preparing for now as this would be a full-blown regular election, so we are are preparing for four poll workers for polling locations, all polling locations will be open, and we will probably have some additional office staff to help us out,” Moore said.
“We would like poll workers to sign up,” he said. “We will always take poll workers of both parties and unaffiliated voters as well. We’ll take all kinds. We want to make sure we’re really prepared for this election and as well moving forward to the November and 2024 elections.”
After this, the board will look to the Nov. 7 general election.
“It’ll have townships, villages, cities’ offices on there,” he said. “We usually prepare for the November general in its odd years to be a big election as well.”
Then preparations will begin for the 2024 presidential race.
“We have two more elections to get through before we can start working on 2024,” Moore said, adding the board expected it to be comparable in size to the 2020 election.
The board office at 52180 National Road, St. Clairsville can be reached at 740-526-0188.