Local election workers brave political strife

FINDLAY — Lori is a Democrat. Jody is a Republican. They work diligently as a team and get along just great. They ensure that elections in Hancock County are fair, orderly and efficient. They manage voter registration and records, ballot printing, explain processes to potential candidates, administer the voting process and counting of votes. Together they have been through much change over the past 30 years. When they started, they made tally marks on absentee ballots with a pencil — one of the things they laugh together about today. Lori Miller is the director of the Hancock County Board of Elections. Jody Beall O'Brien is the deputy director. In January 2025, they will trade titles: Jody will become director; Lori will become deputy director. It's a tradition that every two years the two top election administrators in Hancock County swap roles. Jody and Lori and their predecessors, as well as the four-member elections board — two Republicans and two Democrats – have observed the tradition as long as anyone can remember. No formal rule requires it. It's not necessarily the way things happen in other counties. But no one is aggrieved by it or claims a conspiracy. It just happens peacefully. "We have had a really good relationship. But I think the really one good thing about it is that (although) a lot of people think that our office is political, it's a nonpolitical office," O'Brien said. "We're here to run a fair and honest election, and that's how we run our office. Doesn't matter Republican, Democrat or whatever. I think that that helps a lot. Lori and I have always gotten along." Navigating a maelstrom "We have a really good working relationship," Miller said. "You leave your politics at the door. Our main goal is just to have fair and accurate elections." Miller said she believes that cooperative relationships are maintained between the respective Republican and Democratic election administrators in Ohio's other 87 counties as well. But swirling around Miller and O'Brien and their counterparts across Ohio and the nation is a maelstrom of fear, anger and hostility. Conspiracy theories abound of stolen elections, voter fraud and suppression and hacked voting machines. Election officials in Hancock County and across Ohio are doing everything they can to upgrade security and ensure the November election is fair, orderly and efficient. The elections board held a planning meeting on Aug. 19 with the Hancock County Sheriff's Office, Findlay Police Department, County Emergency Management, and Information Technology Department. "With the politics now, a lot of things are becoming a little bit complicated or difficult, or like, hostility with politics," Miller said. "So, we need to prepare for cybersecurity and actual physical security, too." Miller and O'Brien, like their counterparts across the state, are being provided election readiness webinars teaching best practices for physical and cyber security for the November election. The webinars are provided by the Ohio Secretary of State's Office and the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Fear, worry Usually the weekly webinars last about an hour, but one recent webinar lasted four hours. It included a "tabletop exercise" in which Miller, O'Brien and their counterparts in other counties were given scenarios and asked how they would handle them. "They're trying to prepare us for disasters, which we don't want to have happen, but we need to be aware of them because elections things have changed," Miller said. "Back in the day, we didn't worry about people sending some kind of a drug in to harm us in any way or people shooting at us." Hostility, hate and anger can come in a variety of forms. "You have to put up with a lot," she said. For example, Ohio law prohibits wearing a hat or shirt promoting a candidate or issue while at a polling place or the elections board on election day. But these days, voters sometimes do it anyway, Miller said. "Common practice has always been to just ask the person politely to remove their hat, turn their shirt inside out or put a jacket on," she said. These days a polite request sometimes does not work. "We've got people now that (say), 'I'm not doing that,'" Miller said. "So our guidance now is to de-escalate the situation ... quickly get them in to vote, get them out the door." High turnover Poll worker turnover is a concern these days, as is finding new people willing to do the service on election day. Many poll workers are getting older, and election day is long: the shift extends from 5:30 a.m. to about 8 p.m. "I think, too, people are fearful," Miller said. "They're reading (in the news) what's going on." "What a shame, because it's our right, freedom to vote," she said. It's not only the poll workers who have high turnover rates. Miller said 40% of the current county elections board directors and deputy directors across Ohio are "new to elections." "A lot of it does go with security," Miller said. "You just don't feel safe anymore." It doesn't help that the election process has been disparaged with falsehoods about election workers and voting machines in other parts of the country. The misinformation on social media and even some media outlets contradicts the reality in Hancock County and Ohio, she said. Checks, balances "We have not seen any problems with (voting machines)," Miller said. "There's so many checks and balances." People do not realize that the results which elections boards report on election night are unofficial, and then get checked in the following days, she said. After election day, election workers determine which "provisional" ballots — cast by voters whose eligibility to vote must first be resolved — will actually be counted in the final tally. Election workers also must count votes from registered voters who are overseas. On the Thursday after the election, a bipartisan team checks to verify that the number of people who signed in to vote matches the total number of ballots cast in the election, she said. "There's a lot of checks and balances. I don't know why anybody would say that an election vendor rigged the election because it doesn't happen," Miller said. "Maybe in other states because they may not have the same (system) … We have those checks and balances. We have a Democrat and Republican that work as a team to make sure that nothing bad is taking place." Contingency plans Hancock County and other elections boards around the state, at the request of the Secretary of State's Office, have developed an election day disaster plan for scenarios like tornados or floods. They also have developed an election administration plan at the state's request, outlining the handling of everything from voter registration to ending the election and compiling the results. "We now have contingency plans in place, like if in the three months before the election, Jody or I were to get sick, what happens. How do you replace a director, how do you replace a board member, how do you replace office staff?" Miller said. "They have gotten into a lot of detail the last few years of just making sure elections are going to stay secure." When Jody and Lori are out of the office, they generally avoid news reports, and social media purporting to be information sources. "You can't believe everything that is on Facebook," Lori said. "You have to do some research. Hopefully people will do that." Lori listens to K-Love Christian radio during her drive to and from work each day. "I need that relaxation," she said. If the news is on the TV at home, Lori heads to her laptop to engage with something else or to the kitchen to do dishes. Jody used to consume more news. "I don't anymore. The only time I get anything is on my car," she said. "I really don't listen to Fox or CNN or any of those, hardly, anymore. It's nasty. It's just like, get me to SportsCenter and I'm fine."