By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Wood County voters weighed in on a number of primary races Tuesday, April 28, having waited six weeks since the St. Patrick’s Day debacle involving a last-minute cancelation of face-to-face voting because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In all 18,888 voters cast ballots mostly by mail. That’s shy of 21 percent of the county’s 91,039 registered voters. Still ballots that were postmarked by April 27 will still be counted.
The contested races were mostly on the Democratic side.
The exception was the race for Common Pleas Court judge. Corey Speweik won the Republican nomination topping David Romaker, Jr. 2,661, 54 percent, to 3,128, 46 percent.
Speweik will face Joel Kuhlman, who ran unopposed on the Democratic side.
In the U.S House District 5 race, Nick Rubando easily outpaced Gene Redinger and M. Xavier Carrigan to face off against incumbent Bob Latta, winning with 51.4 percent of the votes. In Wood County, Rubando had 4,395 votes, 56.7 percent of the vote with his opponents splitting the rest with about 20 percent.
Latta received 6,807 votes, the top vote getter of any of the Republicans on the county-wide ballot. President Donald Trump received 6,624 running unopposed. Wood County mirrored the statewide results giving presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden 70 percent of the vote.
Joel O’Dorisio emerged the winner in the unofficial vote count over Reem Subei in the Democratic primary for the chance to face off against District 2 State Senator Theresa Gavarone who was running unopposed in the primary. She received 6,619 votes in Wood County. Gavarone was appointed to the seat in early 2019.
This morning, O’Dorisio was the apparent winner in unofficial results. With all precincts reporting O’Dorisio led with 11,825 votes (52.1 percent) over Subei, 10,850 votes (47.8 percent). Subei came out on top in Wood County, 4,153-3,842.
Subei, however, said she would not conceding, and instead is waiting until May 14 when the official results are announced.
Both candidates for the Ohio House of Representative District 3 ran unopposed. Republican incumbent Haraz Ghanbari, who was appointed in early 2019, received 5,694 votes while Democrat Laurel Johnson had 7,135 votes.
The Democrats drew more voters given they had a contested presidential primary race when balloting began. In Wood County 9,876 Democratic votes were cast in the presidential primary.
