BUCYRUS―Voter turnout for Tuesday’s primary election was much lower than anticipated with only 11.6 percent of all registered voters in Crawford County casting a ballot, including 1,413 voters in Bucyrus and a total of 3,237 for the entire county.
According to Crawford County Board of Elections Director Ruth Leuthold, a few complaints were received from voters that said they did not receive the correct ballot and were unable to vote for the Republican candidates in Bucyrus for mayor and city council president.
“Voters had the option of a Republican ballot or an issues-only ballot since there were no Democratic candidate races. Whether it was a mistake on the poll workers’ part or if the voter asked for the wrong ballot, they needed to let a poll worker know before casting their ballot and the card in their machine could have been manually corrected for them,” Leuthold said.
Petitions for independent candidates were due on Monday, May 6, and several people filed to run in a variety of races.
For the position of Crestline Mayor, former mayor Edward Allen Moore filed his petition to run for the position. Moore was appointed to the position in April of 2018 then resigned in October after a video surfaced of him making racial slurs. Also filing for the position as an independent is John Jones. Diane J. Ritter and Mike Weisman filed for Crestline council.
In Bucyrus, Dan Wirebaugh will run against Democratic Candidate Ron Bores and incumbent Republican Jeff Reser for the position of mayor while James D. Mee and Karl E. Eicher will run against current at-large council members Kevin Myers and Mark Makeever for the three positions that up for election. Douglas B. Fought will run for Third Ward Council member and Lisa Alsept is running for Fourth Ward.
Current Crawford County Municipal Court Judge Shane Leuthold also filed to run for re-election to his position.
The petitions will be certified by the Board of Elections in July. Currently, the board is gearing up for the official count from Tuesday’s election that will occur at 9 a.m. on May 20.
“We will evaluate and certify the six provisional ballots that were cast at that time,” said Leuthold.
Leuthold said the board may still receive absentee ballots through the mail that were postmarked by May 6.
The only close race is the one between Kurt Fankhauser and Terry Spiegel for Bucyrus City Council President with Fankhauser winning the election by seven votes.
For more information, visit the Crawford County Board of Elections’ website.