An Ohio sheriff has been stripped of his role providing security at his county’s early voting location, members of a local elections board said, after he compared immigrants to insects and urged residents to record the addresses of people who have yard signs supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a Facebook post earlier this month, the sheriff, Bruce D. Zuchowski of Portage County, called Ms. Harris a “Laughing Hyena,” and described immigrants as locusts, the crop-destroying pests that were said in the Bible to have caused a plague in Egypt.
“Write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!” Mr. Zuchowski, a Republican who is running for re-election, said of Ms. Harris’s supporters, according to a screenshot of the since-deleted post. Then when immigrants “need places to live,” he wrote, “we’ll already have the addresses of their New families.”
His comments were met with swift condemnation. And on Friday, the bipartisan Portage County Board of Elections voted 3 to 1 to remove the sheriff’s office from its role providing security at the board’s office during the early voting period, which lasts from Oct. 8 to Nov. 3. (One Republican board member voted for the motion; the other Republican member voted against it.)
During early voting in Portage County, which is southeast of Cleveland, residents can vote only at the Board of Elections office.
The board’s vote came in response to residents’ fears stemming from Mr. Zuchowski’s post, and concerns that the presence of the sheriff’s department on site could create an “appearance of impropriety,” said Terrie Nielsen, the deputy director of the Elections Board, who is a Democrat.
Denise L. Smith, the chair of the Portage County Board of Elections and the chair of the county’s Democratic Party, said the board had fielded calls from many residents who said they would not vote early given Mr. Zuchowski’s post.
“I don’t know what he intended by his remarks, but people were afraid,” Ms. Smith said Monday. “It is my opinion that the job of the Board of Elections is to provide access — barrier-free, intimidation-free — to anyone who’s eligible to vote.”
Mr. Zuchowski did not immediately reply to requests for comment. In a follow-up Facebook post last week, the sheriff wrote that his initial post “may have been a little misinterpreted.” He added that “those who vote for individuals with liberal policies have to accept responsibility for their actions.”
The backlash to his original post was bipartisan.
Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, described it as “very unfortunate.” The Portage County chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. called it “frightening.” And the president of the Portage County Board of Commissioners, Tony Badalamenti, resigned from the local Republican Party committee leadership, saying that he “didn’t want to be associated” with it after the post.
“It’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen an adult put on Facebook,” Mr. Badalamenti, a Trump supporter, said in an interview on Monday. He added, “Our county does not have a problem with illegal immigration.”
The Ohio secretary of state’s office said that it had determined that Mr. Zuchowski’s comments did not violate any election laws. Ms. Smith said that the Police Department for Ravenna, Ohio, will likely fill the security role for the county during the early voting period.
Neither the Trump campaign nor the Harris campaign responded to requests for comment.
Last Thursday, a day before the board voted to strip Mr. Zuchowski of his role providing security, the Portage County chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. held a packed emergency meeting at a church, where concerned residents vented frustration with the sheriff, said Frank Hairston, the chapter’s communications chair.
“His comments about the vice president are racial,” Mr. Hairston said in an interview. “We really believe that.”
Mr. Hairston, 72, a supporter of Ms. Harris, said his anxieties about the sheriff’s post were compounded by an incident this month.
One night, a man stopped outside his home in Ravenna and took a photograph of his pro-Harris yard sign, he said. The man then drove off.
When the sheriff made his post a few days later, Mr. Hairston’s “mind got to running” about the possibility that Ms. Harris’s supporters could be punished if former President Donald J. Trump wins the presidential election, Mr. Hairston said.
He said his worries were shared by many he had spoken to in Portage County, which is more than 80 percent white and was carried by Mr. Trump in the last two presidential elections. Some Harris supporters felt the need to remove their signs after the sheriff’s post, Mr. Hairston said.
“The sheriff of Portage County should be supporting all of Portage County residents,” Mr. Hairston said. “All of us.”
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