The Trumbull County Board of Elections allocated equipment for the Feb. 3 special election to recall Cortland Mayor Deidre Petrosky.

Each of two polling locations — Cortland Christian Church and the Cortland Masonic Lodge — will get 16 voting booths, two poll books and two electronic scanners, said board Director Stephanie Penrose. The board voted Thursday on the equipment allocation.

Early voting starts Jan. 6 at the board of elections office at 2947 Youngstown Road SE, Warren.

Early voting will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jan. 6 to 9 as well as Jan. 12 to 16.

The board is closed Jan. 19 for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday with early voting resuming Jan. 20 to 23 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Early voting is 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26, 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 27, and 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28 to 30.

Early voting is 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 31, the Saturday before the special election, and 1 to 5 p.m. Feb. 1.

There are 5,227 registered voters in Cortland, which has six total precincts, Penrose said.

Those who aren’t registered can do so until Jan. 5 to be eligible for the special recall election, she said.

Penrose said she believes this is the first special election in Cortland since the 1990s.

The elections board certified that there were 488 valid signatures on a recall petition signed by 511 people, Penrose said. Those collecting signatures needed at least 381 to be valid.

For a recall election, the city charter requires the mayor to have served more than six months in office and a petition to be signed by at least 20% of the electors in the last general election. There were 1,901 electors in the November general election.

The special election will cost the city $6,000 to $10,000, Penrose said, which is for overtime paid to election workers for early voting, which is any time after 4 p.m., as well as processing absentee votes by mail, legal advertising and running the Feb. 3 election with the two polling locations open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. that day.

Those who collected recall petitions say they and others are upset by several decisions made by Petrosky and the controversy that occurred when council did not support her selection of Sean Ratican as service director.

Petrosky has refused calls to resign.

With the submission of the petitions, a special election had to be held between Jan. 19 and Feb. 3 under the city charter.

Penrose said it was best to have the special election on a Tuesday, as that is when elections occur, and even though one early next year is atypical, changing the day of the week would have caused further voter confusion.

Also, the election couldn’t occur on Jan. 27 because of a conflict at the Masonic lodge and to change the polling location would require mailed notifications to all registered voters who cast ballots there — only adding to the city’s expense, Penrose said.

To have it any earlier would have resulted in early voting starting during the week of Christmas or New Year’s Day.