County Electoral Board Meets to Verify Local Primary Results

Warren County Electoral Board members Marilyn King and Lee Bowen met Wednesday morning, June 18, along with Director of Elections & General Registrar Matthew Reisinger, to review and verify the precinct numbers filed during the previous day’s Primary election. It was part of a statewide local review of municipal voting totals, which will be certified by the State Electoral Board this coming Monday, June 23rd.

Wednesday, things were quiet, but busy inside as County election officials verified Primary Election results submitted by precinct officials the previous day. Royal Examiner Photos Roger Bianchini

As readers know, locally, only the county’s Republican Committee held a local endorsement battle for the two Board of Supervisors (BOS) seats up for grabs in the November election. The local Democrats held a State Office primary focused on the State Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor nominations, as reported in our Election night totals story.

During a break in Wednesday’s meeting, Electoral Board staff indicated the previous day’s submissions were holding up, and they anticipated the County totals would be ready for certification on Monday.

County Director of Elections Reisinger also confirmed several submissions made by the previous day’s 7 p.m. deadline to file for inclusion on the November ballot as independent candidates locally for the Board of Supervisors and School Board races. Those were:

Board of Supervisors: Happy Creek District, Timonty “Tim” Brogan Sr., and Bryan Scott Turnmeyer, who will challenge the Republican Committee-endorsed and former Happy Creek Supervisor Tony Carter.

School Board: Happy Creek District, Sara Jones and Joseph Stahl; and Fork District, George Cline Jr. and Ashlyn Thomas.

Reisinger reminded us that, due to election law standards, any race below the State level doesn’t receive an “R” or “D” party designation by their name on November ballots.

From left, Lee Bowen, Marilyn King, and Matthew Reisinger begin their ballot count verification process at County Election headquarters on 15th Street at 10:30 a.m. Below, the verification counting was hot and heavy during part two of the election day results certification process Wednesday afternoon.

With the local Democrats putting no one up in the local BOS races, the above indicates that Hugh Henry will be, other than any write-in candidates who might emerge, the lone person on the ballot for the supervisor’s seat being vacated by Vicky Cook’s decision not to seek re-election in the Fork District.

Impact on Library issue

How these local race lineups will play out regarding what has been the hottest pre-election issue, the sitting Board of Supervisors’ majority effort to replace a long-valued and proven community asset in non-profit, 501-C3 Samuels Public Library with out-of-state, for-profit Library Systems & Services (LS&S), the latter with an apparent built-in lack of financial transparency from its corporate status, remains to be seen.

Henry and Carter on the supervisors side, and Jones and Cline on the School Board side, have all come out as heavily supportive of retaining Samuels Public Library, which supporters have pointed out has 14 years remaining on its 30-year lease on the building it occupies owned by the County, at a price of one dollar a year.

Samuels Trustees and supporters have also pointed out that legally it owns all its books and other internal assets that have been purchased with Samuels patron donations, State funding, or Endowment assets. These two facts alone indicate a nasty, not to mention costly, legal battle should the current BOS majority of Stanmeyer, Jamieson, Butler, and Cook procede to engage a proposed 10-year library contract with LS&S prior to losing their majority post November/January. Were Henry and Carter to win in November, with Cullers remaining on the board, that would create a 3-2 pro-Samuels board majority as of January.

Elected-official ‘Accountability’ sign at June 13 Save Samuels rally in the WCGC parking lot.

There has even been a suggestion heard of initiating a legal inquiry into making any majority of supervisors that would vote to establish its Fiscal Year-2026 library contract with LS&S, personally responsible for the $250,000 cost of rescinding that contract in its first year of existence, rather than have county taxpayers foot the bill.

Stay tuned sports fans, and keep your eye on the Warren County Courthouse docket should that proposed change of public library providers against the will of an increasingly obvious majority of county citizens, be followed through on.