News Summary

Carlisle to contest election

Montgomery vote source of problem

CARLISLE — The city of Carlisle will be contesting the Nov. 8 general election due to problems with the Montgomery County vote count.

City Council Tuesday moved to begin the process to contest the election.

At stake is the city's continuing 3.8-mill replacement fire levy, which was defeated on the Warren County side of Carlisle by a final vote of 526 to 514 and was winning on the Montgomery County side by a vote of 37-36.

Warren County certified its election results on Tuesday.

City Manager Brad Townsend told council that after discussions with city Law Director David Chicarelli, the Montgomery County Prosecutor's Office and the Montgomery County Board of Elections, it would be in the city's best interests to contest the outcome.

Mayor Jerry Ellender said Montgomery County officials know its not a valid count, since they are not sure if Carlisle voters received the right ballots on the new electronic voting machines.

Human error was cited as the cause for problems with the ballots for Carlisle voters. Steve Harsman, Montgomery County's elections director, said poll workers incorrectly encoded voter cards that are used to bring up the ballots on the electronic machines in precincts in Germantown and Carlisle.

More than 225 votes were cast for the fire levy but there were only 148 registered voters in the Montgomery County side of Carlisle.

After deleting votes cast in Germantown in the Carlisle fire levy, there were still 70 ballots cast. Elections officials could confirm 64 of those ballots against the sign-in book at the polls, leaving six unaccounted ballots.

According to Ellender and Townsend, the Montgomery County Board of Elections would support a petition signed by 25 voters from the city and from both counties that would be submitted as a complaint and asking a Montgomery County Common Pleas Court judge to set aside the Nov. 8 election results and order a new election for the entire city. In addition, if the judge agrees, Montgomery County would pay the costs for a special election for both counties.

Townsend said the petition would be filed in Warren County because that is the controlling county and has most of the city's population.

"Montgomery County is willing to do this because they really don't know (what the vote is)," Ellender said. "It's an opportunity for us to have a second chance."

Ellender also said the next election would be in May, but he'd prefer to seek a special election so that the fire levy does not compete with a possible bond issue to build new school buildings in the Carlisle school district.

"We don't have any other choice," Councilwoman Mary Ann Thompson said. "Let's do it. We have nothing to lose."

Townsend said the city has 15 days to contest the election and that petitions would be circulated in the city this weekend. He said Chicarelli would file the petitions on Nov. 30, the day after Montgomery County certifies the Nov. 8 election, and ask that a judge make a ruling that day.

The election is important to Carlisle as the city is seeking to expand its fire department to include emergency medical services.

Townsend and Ellender said if a judge should set aside the current election results and order a new election, they were not sure of when it would be held.

Contact Ed Richter at (513) 705-2871, or e-mail him at erichter@coxohio.com.