Mahoning County Board of Election officials are determined to move out of their current building on Oak Hill Avenue in Youngstown. 

“We absolutely need a new building,” Dave Betras, Chairman of the Mahoning County Board of Elections said. “This building is not functional. We have our voting machines on pallets covered by tarps from leaking pipes and we are not in compliance with all of the security.”

Betras said the board of elections has been in the building since 2011. In those 13 years, he feels the elections have changed dramatically and they haven't been able to keep up. 

One building the board has their eye on is the old InfoCision on Patriot Boulevard in Austintown. The Mahoning County Commissioners bought the building at the end of December with the intention of moving some offices out of Oak Hill.

Commissioners Anthony Traficanti and Gino DeFabio both said that no decision on who will move into the Austintown building has been made yet. Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti did not respond by the time of publishing for comment.

Defabio said theirs “no reason to rush into it” when making a decision on the building's tenants. He added that when they do, they're “going to make the best decision for the residents.”

Traficanti is firm on wanting the board of elections to stay in the city of Youngstown and says he doesn't "see anything that drastic" that would require the board to leave their current building.

But election officials feel they desperately need to find somewhere new.

“It can’t move fast enough for me,” Betras said. 

Betras said he’ll be at Thursday's commissioner meeting to discuss the idea of the move.