This follows an error in the 2024 November election wherein the Board of Elections first certified, then had to amend the official results after discovering there were “not enough provisional voters” showing in the final count, citing an equipment error. The issue was corrected before the final deadline to certify, which was Nov. 20.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s office had placed the Greene County Board of Elections under administrative oversight after problems in 2023, and said recently it was reviewing the county’s 2024 election performance.
Records obtained by the Dayton Daily News show that the board of elections and the Greene County leadership were also in conflict over budgetary matters.
Audits for the last two presidential elections show that the cost of both the 2020 election and the 2024 election were comparable, and the board actually spent less overall for this year’s presidential election, at $1.369 million in 2020, and $1.324 million in 2024.
However, the Board of Elections was $120,000 over its annual operating budget, primarily owing to the number of seasonal workers, according to county documents.
Several emails obtained by the Dayton Daily News include requests by the Board of Elections for additional funds from Greene County administration, totaling around $120,000.
“This is yet another example of the problems that continue to exist with your fiscal mismanagement. We had the same problem last year,” wrote County Administrator Brandon Huddleson, adding that his next step would be a meeting with the Ohio Secretary of State.
Reached Wednesday, Beeler declined to comment about her resignation.
The Republican members of the Greene County Board of Elections are tasked with filling Beeler’s role, said Jan Basham, one of two Republicans on the county Board of Elections. The next step is for the Greene County Human Resources Department to advertise the position, she said, and once candidates submit their applications, the two Republican members will interview those candidates and present their recommendation to the full board for a vote.
Earlier this year, the Greene County Board of Elections went through a similar process of selecting Jordan Huber as the Democratic Deputy Director of Elections. At the time, Republicans raised concerns about the lack of qualified applicants, though Basham said she is not concerned about finding candidates for Beeler’s role, simply because Greene County has more Republicans.
“We went through this process (of hiring a director) about three and a half years ago,” Basham said. “There were several qualified applicants, and some of those may reapply.”
In January, the Board of Elections voted to stop the practice of alternating the Republican and Democrat leadership in the roles of director and deputy director, a pattern that will more than likely continue when the director is selected, Basham said.
Beeler was hired as Greene County’s elections director in June 2021. She had moved here a few months earlier from Washington state, where she held a county job unrelated to elections, preparing people who had been charged with felonies for pretrial. She had recently run unsuccessfully for state representative in Washington.
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