The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

October 31, 2009

Local races to carry day

Low turnout seen for Election Day

By Matt Snyder

MERCER COUNTY — In two days, Mercer County will vote on district judges, treasurer, and a smattering of local municipal and school board races.

Citizens will put in office the people who decide their property taxes and their zoning issues, who oversee their children’s schools, fund their libraries and parks, and run their local courtrooms.

But many people see this years’ mostly municipal election as an “off year,” said county elections chief Jeff Greenburg. Turnout is expected to drop from the roughly 66 percent during last year’s presidential contest to about 28 to 30 percent.

Those low numbers are estimated based on past years and the potentially soggy, chilly day, Greenburg said.

There was also a 4,000-person jump in the voter rolls last year, likely due to excitement over the presidential contest. Greenburg said that won’t necessarily boost turnout, since many of them could lack interest in local races.

Regardless, the elections office is working double-time. They have to coordinate 450 poll workers, 100 precincts, and 278 voting machines.

“It’s like launching 278 rockets or space shuttles, and you just hope they operate properly and you hold your breath,” Greenburg said of the voting machines.

They usually have one or two machines give them trouble every election, but since there are multiples in every precinct and plenty of roving machine technicians, it hasn’t posed a problem since the county switched to ES&S; iVotronic voting machines in 2005.

The only hiccup this year was a last-minute Sharpsville ballot change. Sharpsville school board candidate Beverly Scurpa was stripped from the ballot after a court challenge, because she had been a poll worker and write-in candidate in the same precinct during the May primary.

Mrs. Scurpa was given incorrect information by the elections office on her eligibility to wage a write-in campaign while acting as a poll worker.

Greenburg said they were able to get the ballot problem solved in short order.

“Hopefully we’ll never be in this position again, but on the positive side, we learned our window to respond to court cases,” he said. It only took about two days to get the issue resolved.

Greenburg added that court cases which can effect the ballot tend to show up often in Mercer County. Last year, Democrats in Mercer County challenged Dr. Steven Porter’s independent bid to appear on the ballot for a congressional race in the 3rd District. Porter was left off the ballot due to discrepancies in some of his nominating papers.

Also this year, four school districts — Mercer, Sharon, Sharpsville, and Lakeview — will have students helping out for the student poll worker program, Greenburg said. It is Lakeview’s first time participating, Greenburg said. Two home-schooled students, the first ever, will also help out.

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