Adams County Republicans name Ariana Norris prosecutor nominee after redo vote

Adams County Republicans had to do it twice before their choice for prosecutor counted. A May 18 meeting of the Adams County Republican Central/Executive Committee was thrown out because it did not properly enter executive session under Ohio Open Meetings Act requirements, leaving the county’s nomination process for one of its most important offices on shaky legal ground.

The correction came on May 28, when the committee met again, rescinded the earlier motions and used roll-call voting to make the record clear. This time, the committee chose Ariana Norris as the Republican nominee for county prosecuting attorney on the November 2026 ballot, a move that now gives voters a valid party nominee after the first attempt was set aside. The final vote was 11 for Norris and 6 for Anthony Baker, with Daniel Getty receiving no votes. The earlier, invalidated vote had been 14 for Norris and 2 for Baker, showing that some members changed positions in the legally operative meeting.

The stakes were higher than a routine party vote because the prosecutor’s office had already been unsettled for weeks. On April 16, Aaron E. Haslam resigned, saying in his letter that the job had come at great personal cost. He submitted the resignation in writing to Clerk Marla May at 12:51 p.m., and told county officials that he needed to leave immediately because employees’ oaths could be rendered invalid and continuity was needed for court proceedings and township meetings already on the calendar.

Norris had already been appointed by county commissioners to serve as acting prosecutor after Haslam stepped down, so the committee’s vote determined who would carry the party banner into the fall election for the permanent office. The field included three attorneys, Baker, Getty and Norris, after applications were accepted from April 28 through May 8 and each candidate presented qualifications at the first meeting.

The background also included a legal fight over Haslam’s voter registration. The Ohio Supreme Court ordered the Adams County Board of Elections to hold a hearing on Christopher Hicks’s challenge after finding the board had denied it without the hearing required by Ohio law. That hearing was scheduled for 6 p.m. on April 16 at the Adams County Government Building. Against that backdrop, the redo vote mattered not just for party politics but for public confidence in how Adams County fills a constitutional office that shapes prosecutions, court operations and the day-to-day functioning of county government.