Oberlin library levy needs a do-over

The Lorain County Board of Elections made the right call Tuesday when it refused to certify passage of Oberlin Public Library's renewal levy. The board had little choice but to do so since voters in the portions of Amherst, Carlisle, New Russia and Pittsfield townships served by the library didn't have the opportunity to vote on the levy because it wasn't included on their ballots. It was a huge mistake that wrongly deprived voters of the opportunity to decide whether to renew the 3.25-mill levy, which generates around $723,000 per year for the library. That money is a big chuck of its annual budget of roughly $1.5 million. Elections board Deputy Director Jim Kramer, a Republican, said that fault for the mistake lay with the elections board's employees. He told us Wednesday that the library levy was wrongly grouped with two renewal levies for the city of Oberlin because the city put the levy on the ballot for the library. Kramer said the elections board was revising its procedures to make sure a mistake like that won't be repeated in the future. (No one is expected to be disciplined over the error.) Voters who had the opportunity to weigh in on the levy passed it overwhelmingly. According to unofficial election returns released on Election Day, the levy garnered the support of 2,088 voters, or 87.4 percent of those who cast ballots on the issue. Another 300 voters, or 12.6 percent, cast their ballots against it. Besides declining to certify the results of the levy vote, the board had another option that we can see: tallying up all the voters who missed out on the chance to vote on the levy and assuming they would have voted no. However, even if every disenfranchised voter had cast his or her ballot against the levy, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. "There were about 700 people who voted in those precincts," Kramer told us. "If they had all voted no, it still would have passed by some 1,000 votes." That option doesn't get around the problem that those 700 voters, some of whom might have voted in favor of the levy, were disenfranchised. "How can you certify an election if not everybody got to vote?" Kramer said. It's hard to argue with that logic. We also suspect that the levy will pass when it goes back to voters next year, either in the primary in May or the general election in November. The results from those voters who had the opportunity to vote this year were similar to the results the last time the levy appeared on the ballot in 2021, when 736 voters, or 87.4 percent, voted in favor of it in what was an especially low-turnout election. (The only major difference between the levy as presented in 2021 and this year is that the library asked voters this year to make the levy permanent rather than renewing it for another five years.) A 1.5-mill levy that also supports the library was renewed with the support of 1,558 voters, or 76.2 percent, last year. The good news is that the problems with the levy won't have any immediate impact on the library's funding. Because the library asked voters to renew the levy a year before it expires, there is still time for a new vote next year. (It's not uncommon for libraries, schools and municipalities to ask voters to renew a levy early, although that's usually done to give them time to go back to the ballot if a levy fails.) We also are glad that the elections board is considering paying for the library's share of running the election. Kramer told us that in municipal elections, the cost is divvied up among the various entities that appear on the ballot. He said the cost for this year's election hadn't been calculated yet, but in 2021, the Oberlin library paid about $8,600. He noted it might be cheaper this year because there were more issues on the ballot than there were four years ago. The elections board needs to check in with its lawyers to make sure its picking up the library's tab is legal, but it seems reasonable to us since the mistake wasn't the library's fault. "It's our fault," elections board President Marilyn Jacobcik, a Republican, said Tuesday. "We certainly take responsibility." Such a mistake should never have happened and could undermine faith in how local elections are run. Elections officials' actions, including taking responsibility and taking steps to prevent such errors in the future, should go a long way toward reassuring voters.