TOLEDO, Ohio — Lucas County voters turned out at 53.1 percent in the November 3 general election, according to the Lucas County Board of Elections figures compiled by the Toledo Free Press, and as the county moves toward certification, one state House race remains close enough to trigger an automatic recount.
In the 44th District, Republican Edward Schimmel leads Democrat David Fournier by just 56 votes — 26,612 (47.97 percent) to 26,556 (47.87 percent) — with independent Lyndsey Stough at 2,313 votes (4.17 percent), the Port Clinton News Herald reported. Lucas County Board of Elections Director LaVera Scott told the News Herald that margin sits within the 0.5 percent threshold that triggers an automatic recount.
Votes remain to be counted before any recount: most of what is left is provisional ballots — 4,649 of them — along with 170 overseas ballots and 46 challenge forms, according to the Port Clinton News Herald. No ballots in the 44th District were affected by the Election Day bomb threat in Lucas County that kept some precincts open late, the News Herald reported.
At the top of the ticket, Lucas County backed the Democratic statewide slate. In the U.S. Senate race, Sherrod Brown carried the county with 92,287 votes to Jon Husted’s 52,982, with William Redpath at 4,066 and Greg Levy at 3,339, according to Associated Press results for the county. Amy Acton and David Pepper won the governor’s race with 52.3 percent in the county, and Marcy Kaptur won the 9th Congressional District with 52.7 percent, according to the Toledo Free Press compilation of Board of Elections results. Statewide Issue 3, the photo ID constitutional amendment, passed in the county with 65.3 percent voting yes, the Free Press reported.
The county’s count drew statewide scrutiny on election night, when Lucas was the last of Ohio’s 88 counties to report, and the Secretary of State later placed the board under Level 3 administrative oversight — the state’s strictest — citing absentee scanning problems and an election-night upload that initially omitted three data drives, according to the state’s oversight letter reported by the Lake Erie Inquiry. Board Director LaVera Scott disputed parts of the state’s account, The Blade reported.
What happens next is the official canvass. Lucas County will hold its certification meeting before the November 24 state deadline — likely November 23, Scott told the Port Clinton News Herald — and the 44th District’s automatic-recount question will be settled once the provisional and overseas ballots are folded into the official count.
Photo: MrJacon000, CC BY-SA 4.0