Sue Mazzarini said she was surprised last month when Fairfield County Board of Elections training staff skipped over a training session on ensuring only legally permissible forms of photo identification are used to vote. The Baltimore, Ohio, poll worker was well aware of Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s June training directive mandating that all Precinct Election Officials (PEOs) are trained on unacceptable forms of voter ID, including identification issued to noncitizens, who are not allowed to vote in U.S. and Ohio elections. With thousands of foreign nationals showing up on state voter rolls — including hundreds in Ohio and possibly many thousands more — LaRose is right to be concerned.
But when Mazzarini asked her group’s trainer about the missing curriculum, she said she was treated to a browbeating lecture.
“She [the instructor] said, ‘You are not the ID police. That is not your job. If that is what you want to do I recommend you search out an entity that will allow you to use those skills, but that is not what you are here for,’” the poll worker told me in a phone interview on Friday afternoon.
Mazzarini said she later asked another instructor, who responded even more tersely.
“He said, ‘If you decide to pursue this avenue we will remove you from being a poll worker and you can never work as a poll worker again,” Mazzarini said.
She’s not alone.
‘Failed to Comply with Its Clear Legal Duty’
Ohio election integrity advocate and poll worker Marcell Strbich
