Editor’s note: An article in Saturday’s print edition about a Shelby County Republican Party meeting last Tuesday inappropriately refereed to Party chairman Dan Cecil as Board of Elections Chairman. This reference is inappropriate, as Cecil was working in his capacity as Party chairman at the event. The Sidney Daily News regrets and apologizes for the error.
The following information was submitted by Cecil clarifying his dual roles, and we invite all readers with questions to read the detailed explanation below:
An article entitled “Officials talk Haitian immigration at meeting” was published in the Sidney Daily News on Saturday, September 21, 2024. One paragraph from that article reads:
“One person asked how the immigrants get to Sidney and someone in the audience mentioned ‘unmarked vans.’ Dan Cecil, the head of the Board of Elections, encouraged people in attendance to get video footage of these vans and report them to the police.”
I am the Chairman of both the Shelby County Board of Elections and the Shelby County Republican Party. I was clearly acting in my capacity as the Republican Party Chairman as I was facilitating this discussion at the public portion of our monthly Republican Party meeting and it was inappropriate and completely out of context to associate this statement with my role as “the head of the Board of Elections.”
This is a serious issue because if a Board member or employee sufficiently blurs the lines between their official Board of Elections role and their partisan political activity, they can be in violation of Ohio law. Secretary of State Advisory 2022-01, issued on January 7, 2022 warns Board members and employees that “criminal statutes and penalties apply” if they violate such laws.
The advisory further makes it clear that violations of the law occur when Board members or employees act “in their official [Board of Elections] capacity” while engaging in certain partisan political activity. It also clarifies that nothing in the law “explicitly limits a public official’s ability” to engage in such partisan political activity “when acting in his or her private capacity” and that “the law does not prohibit a board of elections member from serving on a political party central or executive committee.”
The key, then, is for Board members and employees to be hyper-vigilant about proper attribution whenever they exercise their free speech rights in the public domain and to never make it appear they are supporting one party or the other in their “official capacity” with the Board.
The paragraph cited above may seem innocuous to the casual observer, but to anyone with any significant Board of Elections experience it is clearly a problem. The Chairman of the Board of Elections has absolutely no business making the statement in that paragraph, but it is something that the Chairman of the Republican Party would be expected to address in a Republican Party meeting. The latter is what actually happened.
The above cited advisory also warns Board members and employees not to “collaborate” with a non-governmental entity and political parties are given as a specific example. It also states that “two or more parties ‘collaborate’ when they combine their efforts to work toward a common goal”. Board members and employees must be hyper-vigilant to ensure it doesn’t even appear that they are collaborating, or, combining their efforts to work toward a common goal with a political party. It is a violation of Ohio law to do so.
These are serious matters, so whenever I become aware of a case of misattribution of statements or the blurring of the lines between my role on the Board of Elections and my role with the Republican Party, I will be compelled to publish a clarification or take other corrective action.
