Greene County sends out mail-in, absentee ballots
WAYNESBURG – Absentee and mail-in ballots should be arriving this week at the homes of Greene County voters who requested them after the recently reorganized elections staff worked overtime this weekend to prepare and send them out.
Judy Snyder, who was appointed in late August to serve as the county’s elections and budget director, said the office has processed 3,215 mail-in and absentee ballots as of Sunday.
Snyder said she personally dropped off many of those ballots at the post office Monday, and the office continued sending them out Tuesday and expected to do the same on Wednesday, meaning they should arrive at homes before the end of the week.
The new elections director said she is getting acclimated to her role as she learns the intricacies and regulations involved in the voting process.
She took over after the Greene County commissioners demoted the previous elections director, Tina Kiger, to a middle management role. Shortly after, Kiger submitted her resignation to the commissioners effective Sept. 25. Before leaving, Kiger worked with Snyder for about two weeks helping her to learn about the office and how to manage an election.
“We discussed a lot of different things and the processes and procedures,” Snyder said. “So we did spend some time together.”
But one Greene County commissioner is concerned about why his colleagues decided to change the county’s election director just weeks before the general election. Blair Zimmerman said he disagreed with the decision to replace Kiger, who spent more than 20 years as elections director.
“I think it’s very untimely,” Zimmerman said.
However, he added that he’s been impressed with Snyder’s work in the early stages. He pointed to her work to use federal CARES Act money to help with the election and to organize the mail-in and absentee ballot applications.
“Judy, for the little time she’s been in there, is doing a good job. She just doesn’t have a lot of experience. And it’s a big election coming,” Zimmerman said. “She’s gone above and beyond to acclimate herself.”
Many changes have come to the county offices over the past 10 months after Republicans Mike Belding and Betsy Rohanna McClure were elected last year and took control of the board. Belding, who serves as the board’s chairman, said it was a combination of cost savings and an “ineffective management issue” with Kiger that led them to make the change.
“It was an issue with the process set in place and her requirements for the primary for preparations and 100% accountability for the ballots,” Belding said without elaborating on what caused him to lose confidence in Kiger’s ability to lead the office.
Kiger said Tuesday that the office was overwhelmed with the nearly 4,000 mail-in ballot requests to process with only herself and one other employee working in the office during the primary. She said all the mail-in ballots for the June 2 primary were accepted and processed by election night, but Greene County officials do not count those ballots until the morning after the election when the canvass board begins finalizing the vote totals.
Her office was preparing to turn all of those ballots over to the canvass board to be counted the following morning, but the small staff was not given enough time to organize them in time for the 9 a.m. meeting, she said. Kiger asked for more time to finish the process, but the canvass board members refused, she said, demanding all of the ballots be brought to them by the start of the meeting.
After beginning the process, the canvass board learned that not all of the ballots had been turned over, and Kiger located about 100 processed mail-in ballots in a secure cabinet in the elections office where the ballots were being stored before the primary.
“We did not get to finish our job,” Kiger said. “Mind you, yes, we were behind. But no one took into consideration that there were only two of us and thousands of ballots coming in (along) with phone calls left and right. I told them we did not have enough help. But we did not get to finish our process. If we would have, they would have been where they were supposed to be.”
Kiger said she felt her integrity and that of the office was constantly questioned by the new commissioners.
“They were saying we misplaced them, lost them. They were overlooked when I was getting them down to them,” she said. “If we would’ve been able to finish our job, we would’ve had them in there when they needed them.”
Zimmerman, who declined to discuss the specific issue, considered the situation minor and said it was corrected immediately. But he said he’s now prepared to offer Snyder, who has no previous experience working in an elections office, the resources and support she needs.
“For what she’s coming into, she’s doing well. It’d be tough enough to come in on just elections,” Zimmerman said of Snyder’s work to also manage and prepare the county’s budget. “The proof is in the pudding. Come Election Day, is she going to be ready and prepared, is the bottom line.”
Meanwhile, the elections board, which is made up of the three county commissioners, will hold its meeting at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Greene County Fairgrounds in the upper level of the 4-H building. The meeting was moved it to the fairgrounds because they are expecting a large crowd and want to allow for the audience to be able to physically distance.