This week, I have been lucky to experience the wonderful and complete professionalism of our board of elections in Delaware County. I chose to observe the process of what happens with our elections during a special election when each county must deal with provisional and absentee ballots.

I never knew how much each ballot is so carefully handled in our Delaware election facility, and how each is done so with thoughtful and careful consideration to ensure each of us gets a chance to vote. They not only handle each ballot once, but go through each one a second time, also ensuring that for each person who handles it, the opposing party employee also handles it to ensure there is no one who would or could employ unnecessary partisan leverage.

In addition, it was surprising how many ballots came in with voters who were not registered in Delaware County. It is a difficult process to ensure that these voters are indeed registered in a county in Ohio and if they are, then they are re-registered to vote in Delaware County. The director, Karla Herron, kindly shared this process with me and Paul Disantis, another observer during this process.

But that is not good enough. This process is then verified by our deputy director, Anthony Saadey, ensuring that both a Republican and a Democrat have ensured the process and each voter is given a fair and non-partisan review. This process may sound simple, but it is very time-consuming and arduous.

Although I could go on with the many other reasons why some of these votes may be initially put in a potential rejection bin, and then researched and put back into the voting system, I can tell you that I am so much more satisfied that our system works. And I am so grateful for the wonderful staff who meticulously ensures that with each ballot they reviewed, they did so to ensure that each vote was fairly counted.

Thank you employees of the board of elections, Karla Herron, Anthony Saadey, and the board of elections for doing all you do for us in Delaware County in making sure we have our very sacred vote. This election surely proved to us that each vote counts, and it is so important to vote in every election!

Mindy Hedges

Radnor