Northampton County's elections last November were conducted with voting machines the state never certified. Pennsylvania's Department of State had reluctantly certified WinVote Version 2.0.2 in February, 2006, noting twelve specific problems. But the system we had used was WinVote Version 2.0.3, an uncertified version.
Russ Shade, co-chair of a citizens' panel convened to examine our election troubles, wanted answers both from the state and vendor Advanced Voting Solutions. "They have this nasty habit of not returning phone calls."
Northampton County's citizen panel eventually sent a certified letter, and the state has responded as fast as a glacier.
State elections commissioner Harry A. VanSickle sent an email to county officials just today. "Wanted to let all of you know that the Certification Report for Advanced was approved and signed by the Secretary. I want to read it over again before sending it out to you tomorrow. This is for version 2.0.3."
Whoopee!
No rush, Harry. We've already conducted one election with uncertified machines and the next one is only twelve days away. Take your time. Maybe you should run it by PennDot, too.
8 comments:
Bernie, you are a better investigative reporter than any local newspaper reporter. How do you get text of an email sent today?
I am sure you will be at the Voter Registration office the next few days looking over those campaign finance reports.
How do you get text of an email sent today?
I found it in a hall. Our reporters are quite good and don't get enough credit for their very good work. After blogging for a year, my respect for the mainstream has gone way up.
But now that you mention campaign finance reports, I just happened to drop by today. I looked at the reports filed for Easton's mayoral candidates. Very interesting. I'll tell you about that tomorrow.
Bernie, I've been reading your blog for awhile - pretty good stuff. However, it seems that most of your posts deal with Northampton County. There are races going on in Lehigh County as well. I've been to a number of candidate events in LC recently but I don't recall seeing you. I'm pretty sure I would recongnize you if I saw you as I understand your beak sort of makes you stand out.
I realize you can't be all places but unless your definition of "Lehigh Valley" ends at Rt. 33 you ought to make it over to Lehigh County.
KYDixie!
1) Please, get help immediately. If you've been reading my blog for some time, you probably need shock treatments. I'm told they hurt but don't remember because of the lobotomy.
2) Your criticism is quite valid. My goal is to provide coverage of the entire Lehigh Valley. But I'm based in NC and that's where most of my contacts are located. So I end up writing a lot about what goes on here. I try to mention A-town and other areas, but it's really hard for me to get around everywhere. I wish I could do more.
3) LC is very fertile for blogging. In NC we have two newspapers who like to scoop each other. It's good competition and we get more out in the open this way. And to make matters worse for local pols, we have several good blogs. But in LC, there's only one paper. A lot of stories are untold. I know a few LC people and am trying to get them interested.
4) Chris Casey did commit to providing more LC specific coverage, but that was before he decided to run for office.
5) If you'd like to give me any essays concerning LC candidate nights, I'll post them for you. If you'd like to blog about LC on a regular basis, I'd add you here as a team member or you could even start your own blog. There definitely is a need.
Bernie, I'd be happy to give you some essays except I'm a candidate myself so I don't think that would be appropriate. I'm not sure how the previous post came out under kydixie (part of my email address) as I had intended to use my name. In any event, it looks like you'll have to do the LC leg work yourself assuming you have sufficiently recovered from your lobotomy to travel west of Rt. 33. If you have, then there is a candidates forum on Tuesday from 9:00 AM to noon at the Lehigh County Senior Center (1633 Elm Street).
Dean, I'll see if I can cover it. I might be able to get away that morning.
I showed up for the canidates forum at the Senior Center only ot find out that they were also holding a Jimmy Durante look alike contest in the same building. As a reuslt, I don't know if you were there or not. If you didn't make it you missed a chance to meet a number of different Lehigh Valley candidates.
I had high hopes to be there but could not do so. Too much time was spent yesterday going over finance reports, and today I had to work.
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