Sep 27, 2015 4 min read

September has been a tumultuous month for the Greene County Board of Elections.

The resignation from the board by Greene County Sheriff Brian Tennant appeared to be nothing more than a blip on the radar when he left Sept. 8 so he could dedicate more time to his job.

But the inexplicable mass exodus by the entire board 10 days later should have raised red flags for every voter in the county.

Greene County President Judge Farley Toothman asked for a special executive session Sept. 18 in his courthouse office to discuss the “contractual, legal and ethical implications” of the Board of Commissioners voting a day earlier to spend $12,000 for technical support for the county’s voting machines.

The hourlong meeting to discuss these “legal” matters ended with the immediate resignations of Toothman, Lawrence Stratton and Michael Dulaney, which they announced on a single page of paper.

If those abrupt resignations without any explanation weren’t strange enough, Toothman then reappointed himself and Dulaney to the board last Monday afternoon, exactly 72 hours after the initial meeting. Frances D. Pratt, a former elections director, was added to the board to replace Stratton.

There clearly appears to be a tug-of-war between Toothman in his role as president judge and the Greene County commissioners.

The three commissioners typically make up the elections board, but are not permitted to serve on it this year because all three ran for re-election in the primary, allowing Toothman to make his own appointments to fill the seats.

There might be other matters within the county on which the two sides disagree, but it’s time to put an end to those games when it comes to the elections board.

Voters in Greene County don’t care about petty politics between rival factions within county government. They just want to be assured the election five weeks from tomorrow is just and fair.

The commissioners did their part by agreeing to spend county money to allow Electronic Systems & Software engineers to offer technical support in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 election.

ES&S representatives could return to Greene County around Election Day to help should their be any glitches.

The elections board continued that mission when the newly appointment group met at the board’s regularly scheduled public meeting Tuesday to discuss concerns from the public about the accuracy of the IvoTronics voting machines and the size of the font on the electronic ballot.

A machine glitch at the Franklin East precinct accidentally recorded the wrong votes during the May primary, prompting the elections office staff to allow the voter to recast his ballot on a different machine while workers recalibrated the malfunctioning computer.

Another machine froze at a precinct in Washington Township, county officials said, forcing it to be shut down for the remainder of the day.

ES&S representatives who attended last week’s Board of Elections meeting said the county staff handled both situations properly and are more than qualified to ensure a fair election. Pratt, who is serving as the board chairman, also gave the entire elections office a boost of confidence by saying she has faith this year’s general election will run smoothly.

“They are the best at their jobs,” she said of the staff at last week’s meeting.

We agree.

And we expect the members of the newly formed (albeit very similar) Board of Elections to put aside any pettiness or perceived slights to focus solely on the issues facing the county from now until Election Day.

That’s all a voter cares about when he or she enters the polling place to cast a ballot.