Austintown Fitch senior Hamza Mufoeh, 17, far right, along with other students scan their ballots after voting in a mock election as Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose visits the school Thursday...by R. Michael Semple

AUSTINTOWN — Local students got a lesson in citizenship Thursday when a top state official visited Austintown Fitch High School.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose made the second trip of the year in his Grads Vote program, intended to give pending high school graduates and upper-class students a look at the voting process and an appreciation of its importance. The program is also part of the “Youth at the Booth” initiative, which encourages Ohioans 17 and older to apply for positions as poll workers.

“We’ve been doing these around the state and the idea started several years ago when we decided, let’s just take away the intimidation or the mystery of voting,” LaRose said. “For high school students, let’s let them experience what it’s like to vote, and this is set up just like a real polling location, and in fact many polling locations across the state are high school gymnasiums.”

LaRose introduced the program and then students were guided through the process of a mock election, using real mock ballots and actual voting machines provided by the Mahoning County Board of Elections. The gymnasium also was set up with all the legally required signage that voters see at polling places on Election Day.

They cast votes on three issues: the best pizza, choosing between Wedgewood, Pizza Joe’s and Avalon Downtown; who won the battle of the rappers, Kendrick Lamar or Drake; and favorite NFL team, the Browns or the Steelers.

While they waited for the votes to be tabulated, LaRose discussed the value of voting.

“We often don’t stop to take account of how important this thing called a vote is,” he said.

LaRose reminded students that for thousands of years, the only way to become the person in charge was heredity or force.

“Well, thank heaven we have a different way to do it now, using the power of a ballot, and it really does make a difference,” he said. “When people say they don’t get involved with politics, that’s like saying you don’t get involved in the weather. It’s going to impact you, if it’s cold outside or raining, you’re going to be cold or wet. And the decisions made here at your county courthouse or down in Columbus or in Washington, D.C., are going to impact you. But unlike the weather, you can change politics.”

LaRose told students about a congressional campaign he worked on that was decided by only 600 votes, roughly the number of people that would fill the bleachers where they were sitting.

He told them how every year in Ohio, five or 10 elections are decided by one or two votes or a tie is broken by a coin toss.

“That’s not going to happen in a presidential race, but I think as students you all can agree school board races are important and township trustee races are important and mayor’s races are important,” he said.

LaRose, who served in the U.S. Army as a Green Beret, served in Iraq in 2005, when the country’s first free election took place after the deposition of dictator Saddam Hussein.

“These Iraqi men and women were so excited to come out and vote, but they had something to be afraid of as well,” he told the students.

LaRose told them about the purple ink on Iraqi voters’ fingers that was used to ensure they did not vote more than once. But the ink also put voters in peril.

Al-Qaida leader Abu Muṣ’ab Zarqawi called voters infidels and the terrorist group threatened to cut off voters’ fingers or kill them.

“Think of the courage of these Iraqi men and women who still went and voted despite those kinds of threats,” he said. “When they held up their index fingers with purple ink on them, it might as well have been another finger, if you know what I mean. They were saying ‘I’m not intimidated by you, I’m not afraid of you, I did something powerful today.'”

LaRose said he wants Ohioans to feel that same passion for voting

“In that first election, they had over 70 percent voter turnout,” he said. “Nobody’s threatening to cut fingers off in Ohio and we almost never have a 70-percent voter turnout.”

LaRose also reminded students who are already old enough to vote that they need to register by Monday to vote in the May 6 primary. He then gave them the results of their mock election. Wedgewood, Kendrick Lamar and the Browns won the day.

Fitch Principal Sal Maiorana said the event is a vital part of educating students.

“We teach all of our core content, but the other end of education is truly to make citizens that are part of the community, part of the country,” he said. “It’s a good idea that the first time they see that process is not during an election.”

Addison Mullennex, 16, a junior at Fitch, agreed that the event was important for her and her classmates.

“I feel like the reason so many people don’t go vote is because they’re so intimidated by the idea, because they don’t know how to do it, so events like these are very beneficial I believe,” she said.

Township Trustees Monica Deavers and Bruce Shepas also attended the event and said they were impressed by the level of engagement.

“I think this is an exceptional idea,” Shepas said, “giving our youth the education on how to vote and how to make decisions in their life that affect us here at home and on a national level.”

Despite his initiatives to get out the vote, LaRose, a Republican, has come under fire from Democrats and state and national civil rights groups for his purging of voters from the state’s database.

In July and October, the Ohio Capital Journal and Fox News 5 Cleveland ran a story citing a study from voter rights watchdog Demos and a report from the American Bar Association.

The story noted that LaRose continues to cite voter fraud as his primary reason for purging hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters, despite the secretary’s own evidence that the problem is almost nonexistent in Ohio. LaRose’s office found 0.0005 percent “potentially illegal” voting in the 2020 general election.

However, in 2023 and 2024, LaRose purged more than 155,000 voters from the state’s rolls. Demos found that Ohio’s safeguards for voter removal are among the worst in the country and the state’s practices are the most likely to remove eligible voters, while the American Bar Association’s 2020 report found that the voters purged are more likely than not to be minorities.

In March, LaRose’s office announced that it would begin purging more than 352,000 more voters from the state’s registration database after the May 6 primary election. If the purge is completed as planned in September, the total number removed – more than 500,000 since 2023 – will represent roughly 7% of the state’s registered voters.

LaRose’s Press Secretary Ben Kindel said the process is legal and valid for ensuring security and accuracy in Ohio’s elections.

“This process has been going for a number of years and has been carried out by Democratic and Republican administrations,” he said. “This was upheld by the United States Supreme Court.”

Kindel said LaRose should get credit for taking the unprecedented step of publishing a list of those who may be removed from the registration database.

“That way individuals can see if their name is on there and take action to preserve their right to vote,” he said. “Secretary LaRose doesn’t apologize for removing bad data. It shouldn’t be controversial, and we shouldn’t make it controversial.”

It was most likely a coincidence that LaRose hosted the event in Austintown on the same day that community leaders spoke before the Mahoning County commissioners in opposition to a prospective plan to move the Mahoning County Board of Elections office to the township from its current location at Oak Hill Renaissance Place in Youngstown.

Many local political and spiritual leaders also spoke against the move at Tuesday’s Board of Elections meeting. Speakers such as the Rev. Ken Simon of New Bethel Baptist Church in Youngstown and 6th Ward Councilwoman Anita Davis said removing the board from the county seat will disproportionately affect 30 percent of the county’s voters, 30 percent of whom do not drive and struggle with transportation to the office as it is.