Greene County elections board scrutinized: Office containing ballots found unlocked overnight
Dayton Daily News. December 12, 2004. By Mehul Srivastava

XENIA | Election observers examining Greene County voter records were told Friday the records were to be sealed after Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ordered county boards of election to consider all election-related records as falling within a "canvassing period."

This period usually lasts about 10 days after the election, but was being extended because an official recount is under way in the state, according to Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo.

LoParo said the records are to be treated with the "utmost care" until the recount is over.

The two election observers say they later found the Greene County Board of Elections office unlocked Saturday morning, fueling their suspicions they weren't allowed to examine records that might have been tampered with.

"It is shocking that they would first deny us access, and then leave the records unlocked overnight," said Joan Quinn, a retired lawyer from Sacramento, Calif., an election observer acting on behalf of the Green Party, which asked for a recount of the Ohio presidential vote.

Election board officials returned Saturday afternoon to lock up the building after they were told of the security lapse.

They said that while the building had been left unlocked by mistake, voter records are kept in a separate locked room, and had not been tampered with.

"The records are safe, the ballots are still locked and we can have our computers checked to see if they have been tampered with," said Llyn McCoy, deputy director of the Greene County Board of Elections.

But Quinn and her colleagues say that when they entered the unlocked building, voting machines and voter records had been left in the open.

Quinn said that she and her fellow observer were looking into the low turnout recorded in minority precincts, especially precincts 354, 224, and 355, which recorded voter turnouts in the 50 percent range, while the average for Greene County was 74 percent. While examining those records, she said, they were informed of the "lockdown" order.

"I haven't heard anything about it," said Fred Hall III, president of the Greene County elections board.

Contact Mehul Srivastava at (937) 225-2432. Staff writer Jim Bebbington contributed to this report.