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Akron Beacon-Journal: "Brunner Wasn't Fooled"
The Akron Beacon Journal
March 06, 2008
Jennifer Brunner wasn't fooled by the Summit County Republican Party selecting Brian Daley to sit on the county board of elections. On Friday, the secretary of state rejected the choice, noting that the board ''has experienced in the past an environment described as including harassment, intimidation, threats, hostility, retribution and condescension.'' She added: ''I cannot in good conscience appoint an individual to the board whose past behavior predicts the fostering of a similar unproductive environment.''
Brunner rightly cited the risk that Daley would bring the same approach to the board that caused her to reject the reappointment of Alex Arshinkoff, the county Republican Party chairman. She hardly had to take leap in doing so. Daley and Arshinkoff are close allies. Watch Daley during his tenure on the Hudson City Council, and the echoes of Arshinkoff were hard to miss. He too often didn't play well with others. He brought an archly ideological and partisan bent to the council position.
Tellingly, voters in his Hudson district said no to his re-election bid last fall.
The selection of Daley had all the appearances of Arshinkoff testing Brunner. Would she prove resolute in seeking to change the unacceptable climate at the board of elections? She answered yes, and then some. She moved quickly to fill the elections board vacancy before the March 1 deadline. She chose Donald Varian, an Akron attorney supportive of ousting Arshinkoff from the party chairman's position, an effort that took an important turn this week with the election of central committee members.
No surprise that Arshinkoff and his allies have opted to challenge in the Ohio Supreme Court Brunner's rejection of Daley. That said, the secretary of state has wide latitude in these matters. If she may have overreached elsewhere, seemingly in pursuit of a board member opposed to her edict about voting machines, her approach here has merit. Donald Varian represents a necessary and clear departure from the ways and methods of Alex Arshinkoff.
