Family business: Retiring Richland County elections director being replaced by son |

MANSFIELD — Paulette Hankins likely helped Matt Finfgeld learn almost everything he knows about elections.

But as the 70-year-old Hankins prepares to retire at the end of the day Wednesday, the outgoing Richland County Board of Elections director isn’t so sure she taught her 42-year-old son everything that she knows.

“I don’t know,” she said with a laugh Tuesday afternoon, sitting in her West Longview Avenue office with her replacement. “Most families, when they have their dinner discussions, they talk about sports or news or something. We talk about politics and elections.

“He has grown up with it.”

Finfgeld, sharing the laughter, said, “I guess we will find out.”

Finfgeld, a 1997 Madison High School graduate, was the unanimous choice by the bipartisan elections board earlier this month to replace Hankins, who is leaving the department after 38 years, the last 26 as director.

She said Finfgeld, who resigned as chief deputy for Richland County Treasurer Bart Hamilton to accept the new position, is well suited for the position. The Springfield Township resident has worked part-time for the local elections board since 1992 in a variety of roles.

“I can’t even imagine training a person coming in off the streets to run an elections board,” Hankins said. “I just can’t imagine a person with no experience trying to do this job.”

A Democrat like his mother, Finfgeld has served as the chair of the local party’s central committee and as an Ontario City Council member. He has seen technology change in the elections industry since punch-card voting was still being used when he began.

Finfgeld, who started his tenure loading and unloading election equipment, has trained poll workers, acquired new polling locations, tested voting machines prior to each election and been a rover, traveling to voting sites to ensure things run smoothly.

“I don’t think I missed more than two elections since I started,” he said. “I have visited every polling location in the county at one time or another.

“I have done ADA compliance at polling locations. I have worked absentee voting. I have helped tabulate results on election night.”

The excitement of the new role, working with Republican Jane Zimmerman, deputy director, is tempered by the fact he is leaving his post in the treasurer’s office after 14 years.

“It was not an easy decision,” he said. “It was great. I enjoyed the office. I enjoyed working for Bart. He has taught me a lot.”

Both Hankins and Finfgeld said the bipartisan nature of Ohio elections have helped the Buckeye state succeed while some other states have struggled.

“We have a Republican and a Democrat involved in each phase, from the registration up to the petition process and on to the actual vote counting,” Hankins said.

Finfgeld added, “And out at the polls. That’s one thing I always stressed. You never approach a (voting) machine to look at it without the opposite party with you. Period. That is always done at the polls.”

A Mansfield resident who graduated from Mansfield Senior in 1969, Hankins said the biggest changes she has seen during her tenure have been in the voting technology — and the current political climate.

“The misinformation and the just outright lies that are out there now about the whole voting process,” Hankins said. “It’s hard to combat all of that. You just try to educate people to try to combat some of the misinformation.

“I am not sure that it had any effect. There are some that will take that and run with it and help spread the truth.”

Hankins planned to retire in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed her departure.

“COVID hit and pretty much threw all my plans out the window,” she said. “We had so much going on that I couldn’t even plan any of my retirement. Plus, I couldn’t imagine bringing anyone else in during that year, as challenging as it was.

“I figured I would make it through 2020. I started thinking about it seriously in the middle of December and finalized it around the middle of March,” Hankins said.

The elections veteran has made it clear to her replacement that she has no plans to work the polls going forward, including the upcoming May 4 primary election.

“Let someone younger do it,” she said with a laugh.