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0000017a-3b40-d913-abfe-bf44a4f90000Howard Wilkinson joined the WVXU news team as the politics reporter and columnist in April 2012 , after 30 years of covering local, state and national politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer. On this page, you will find his weekly column, Politically Speaking; the Monday morning political chats with News Director Maryanne Zeleznik and other news coverage by Wilkinson. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Wilkinson has covered every Ohio gubernatorial race since 1974, as well as 16 presidential nominating conventions. Along with politics, Wilkinson also covered the 2001 Cincinnati race riots, the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, the Air Canada plane crash at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 1983, and the 1997 Ohio River flooding. And, given his passion for baseball, you might even find some stories about the Cincinnati Reds here from time to time.

Hamilton County fires 104 poll workers for not voting

One hundred and four poll workers were let go by the Hamilton County Board of Elections Tuesday because they hadn't voted since the 2012 election.

They were all working polling places during the 2013 and 2014 elections, but did not cast ballots themselves, according to the board staff.

The board of election reviews the performance of its paid poll workers after every election. This review found the 104 who did not vote. Four more were fired by the board for poor scores on their performance reviews. Elections director Sherry Poland said those four mishandled provisional ballots and didn't turn on the ballot scanning equipment until 12 minutes after the polls opened.

The board also voted Tuesday to re-train 581 poll workers because of the performance reviews.

Nearly 2,200 poll workers had no issues and were retained by the board.
 

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.