The Wood County Election Commission came back from closed session Wednesday morning taking no action concerning the election office after hearing from six citizens in the public portion of the meeting.

The meeting began with County Clerk Kelley Price calling it to order and nominating County Judge Kevin White to chair the commission. The commission members consist of White as chair, Price as vice-chair, Tax Assessor-Collector Carol Taylor as secretary, Democratic Party chair Judy Traylor and Republican Party Chair Kathy Wakeman.

The “no action” taken at the end of the meeting secures Election Administrator Laura Wise’s position at this time. Judge White had said prior to the meeting that since the meeting was concerning personnel there would have to be an executive session.

White called for the meeting and limited the number of speakers during the public forum to six with each person having three minutes to speak.

Several members of the Concerned Citizens of Wood County who have been pushing for paper ballots and “election integrity” over the past year were in attendance with four of them speaking in the public forum.

Two speakers spoke supporting Wise and the job she and her staff have done.

White’s first statement after becoming chair included his belief in public participation.

“I am a very big proponent of people participating. I like it when people have something they want to talk about, they are able to do it,” White said. “We do have rules of decorum and that means I have three hard fast rules I have for speaking. They are: no one can be rude, no one can be slanderous and no one can be personal. We can’t shout across the room if we don’t agree with each other. Each person is allowed three minutes and you have that time to talk about any issue you may have.”

Phyllis Nichols, Terrell Aronspeer, Liz Smith, Micelle Mellon, Joanne Stanfield and Madelyn Gibson spoke. 

Aronspeer has authored election manuals that have been used by the county. He talked about the success of the training materials. Nichols’ concerns were seals not matching serial numbers on the machines. Smith described problems with machines in Mineola. Mellon also spoke about a machine which would not work.

Gibson encouraged the possibility that the elections office could use more help in dealing with the heavy loads during elections and claimed she felt the elections office is run “pretty well.” Stanfield has worked elections elsewhere and made the claim that Wise was the best election administrator she had worked with.

Former Republican Chair Janna Castloo asked White if she could speak, but White denied her request because she had not signed up, and they had already heard from six people.

The commission moved into executive session and returned with the “no action taken” decision.

White reported the commission would meet again in June.