"I'd like to congratulate our new Controller," said Cusick. Zrinski was gracious in response. "Thank you very much, John. I really appreciate the race that we ran. I felt it was primarily positive and that you were a very good opponent."
In a not-so-subtle reference to the election mishaps last week, Cusick also announced that he'll be voting by mail next year.
Speaking of that election, results are still unofficial, but they now include 199 provisional ballots.
Overall turnout now stands at 33.11%. This is slightly higher than the 32.5% turnout in the 2021 municipal election. This turnout figure suggests that most who wanted to vote were able to do so. Without question, some voters were unable to cast ballots at precincts that temporarily closed and were thus deprived of their most basic right - active suffrage.
You might say that overall turnout might be higher, but that many voters who chose to exercise their franchise on election day were deprived of that right.
Election Day turnout in the 2021 municipal was 22.17%. This year, it currently stands at 21.56%. So even with the problems, election day turnout in this race was about the same as it was two years ago.
There is no doubt in my mind that some voters were unable to vote, and there is no excuse for denying that most basic of rights. But if there was an intention to suppress turnout, it failed. The numbers tell us actual and even election day turnout are about where they were two years ago..
Democrats maintain a huge lead in the countywide, district council and city races. While some of you might attribute this to admitted election day problems, the margin of victory is simply too huge for those issues to have made a meaningful difference. Nationwide, Democrats won big last week. In Northampton County, another reason why Dems succeeded is that Republicans can't seem to get out of their own way. Yesterday, Lehigh Tp Supervisors Cynthia Miller blasted the county party leadership on a local radio station and blamed the loss on them.
Below are down ballot close races: (50 votes or less). Most of the leaders in these down ballot races are Republican.
Bangor Area School Board: Michael Goffredo over Courtney Gilmour by 50 votes.
Naz Area School Board II: Chris Miller over Jason Swails by 37 votes.
North. Area School Board II: Brian McCulloch over David Gogel by 43 votes.
Northern Lehigh School Board: Mathias Matt Green leads Glen A Williams by 6 votes.
Lehigh Tp Supervisor: Michael F Jones leads Phillip Gogel by 47 votes.
Lower Mt Bethel Tp Supervisor: Dave Ascani is ahead of Sandra Newman by 47 votes.
Lower Nazareth Tp Supervisor: Nancy Teague leads Robert Hoyer by 48 votes.
Glendon Borough Council: Kathryn Harstine leads Jeffrey Muschlitz by 2 votes.
North Catasauqua Borough Council: Jessica Cope is ahead of Scott Homes by 5 votes.
Roseto Borough Council: Mark A Goffredo, Jr, leads Carl Renna by 7 votes.
Tatamy Borough Council: Michael Lester leads Daniel Dewey by 12 votes.
Bangor Borough Council: Marc Sperling is ahead of Forest Myers by 25 votes.
Shame to lose Cusick. He should run for county executive in two years. With Zirinski, I have been told by a big-time insider at the courthouse that Barron will run the office and she will sign the papers and may not even show up that much and collect her pay. Must she go to work?
ReplyDeleteHas Aaroe conceded? That thrashing had to be upset of the year
ReplyDeleteNo way she actually concedes. Aaroe and her tiny Trump-wannabe husband don’t have the class that Cusick does.
DeleteShame about Cusick - he would have been fantastic at the job.
NorCo elections have zero integrity. It was so casually destroyed. Blame the machines and don't demand to know why Dertinger continues to collect a salary for his disastrous incompetence. He has no integrity. If he did, he would have already resigned. Integrity should be forced upon him. But if his job was to suppress election day voting, he did exactly that, and we should demand answers from his boss regarding that plan..
ReplyDeleteAs I read this post, you acknowledge disruptions on Election Day are more likely to (but not always) harm Republican candidates more than Democrat candidates because more Republicans vote in-person, live on Election Day. I agree. Actually, I think this is what happened during the surprising 2020 Presidential Election. There were many Election Day disruptions, errors, etc. all across the nation in 2020. The ES&S voting system was involved in many of those incidents.
ReplyDeleteI say, Northampton County must find a different vendor for election services. Despite the added costs. Such an amount of money can be found by shifting around inside the present budget. Doesn’t mean all problems will stop, of course.
"Has Aaroe conceded? That thrashing had to be upset of the year"
ReplyDeleteShe is likely waiting until votes are certified, but there is no way she can win at this point. I believe a group of Rs have met with lawyers to see what she can do legally, although I don't think Aaroe herself is involved. She is a very good lawyer and would havemade a good judge, but the people (and I ) preferred Panella.
"I have been told by a big-time insider at the courthouse that Barron will run the office and she will sign the papers and may not even show up that much and collect her pay. Must she go to work?"
ReplyDeleteYou are anonymous and do not even name the "big time insider." How pathetic is that! Having said that, there are items that only the Controller signs. Will there be oversight by Zrinski? No. Will she be there FT? No. Will she continue her PT jobs elsewhere? I believe so. I make these statements but I sign my name.
"The ES&S voting system was involved in many of those incidents."
ReplyDeleteI am making no defense of ES&S, but that is completely horseshit in 2020, as you contend. The Express Vote XL is in use in Cumberland County and Philadelphia. No problems have been detected with those machines. The Express Vote XL is used in Monmouth County NJ and there was a software installation error in 2022 that caused the flash drive to load data twice. This was a human error, just as there was a double human error in this election with both the software installation and subsequent L&A testing.
Complaints about the XL itself were rejected in federal court after a hearing in which so-called experts testified. He called the claims "baseless and irrational." He noted there is zero evidence that the systems can be hacked. The XL has been certified and re-certified. It is a very good system. But no system, even paper ballots is immune from human error.
What I like about the XL is that it is voter verifiable, meaning that you can see your paper ballot. In this election, the software error made that paper ballot voter unverifiable. In my view, the use of the machine should have stopped as soon as that error was discovered and should have stayed stopped. People should have voted by emergency ballot. I believe it was error to instruct voters they could continue to vote on the machine when they were unable to verify that their ballot was what was intended. I would have insisted on a paper ballot if I had voted in person.
I also would agree that ES&S, a for profit business, has been guilty of making misleading claims about its systems and has in the past been involved in wining and dining potential customers (not NorCo).
"I say, Northampton County must find a different vendor for election services. Despite the added costs. Such an amount of money can be found by shifting around inside the present budget. Doesn’t mean all problems will stop, of course."
That is ridiculous. First, Council can't simply wave a wand and shift things around. It is unable to interfere with budget revenue projections. To find the $3 million plus for a new system it would have to cut somewhere else, and cut deeply. Should it lay people off? Should it defund open space? Should it refuse to fund the jail or the courts and fail in another core county function? And even if it could do these things, you are suggesting that they have less than a month to come up with another system that has not been reviewed by either Council, the elections commission or the admin. That is just absurd.
The XL was not chosen lightly. It went thru several demonstrations and meetings of the elections commission and county council. County Council even delayed its vote to see how the system worked in Delaware.
The XL is a good system. ES&S can be tagged for its shoddy software installation. Both the county and ES&S can be hammered for very poor L&A testing with that shoddy software. Once that voters could no longer verify their ballots last week, the county should have suspended use of the machine and resorted to paper.
With paper ballots, there is another set of problems. This is why I prefer the voter verifiable machine.
No system is immune to human error.
All right, yes you can see that paper ballot and verify that what is printed on it agrees with your intentions. But, how do you know the machine is registering those same voted?
DeleteZrinski is already running for the next thing. She hasn't the gray matter to do even rudimentary math. It will confuse and bore her. She'll be dragged for he incompetence. That's why she's already planning her next move. The world must be kept safe from the carnage of plastic straws. She has much bigger windmills at which to tilt, than those offered in the leather visor department of an obscure county like NorCo. She may want Fetterman's seat, despite the puddle of drool in it.
ReplyDeleteBernie 11:25:
ReplyDelete"Will she continue her PT jobs elsewhere? I believe so."
You left out "Begin her campaign for County Exec./State Senator/U.S. Congress as soon as she learns McClure/Boscola/Wild announce their intention not to seek re-election."
It's coming. We all know it. [shudder]
The XL was the only machine. Amy Cozze stood in front of council giving updates on the XL at meetings on her findings as directed by Dertinger do so and another voting machine demonstration, not the XL, was cancelled, due to a “snowstorm “and never got to the county offices.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct the XL WAS the chosen one.
The messaging (slander) of the Panella campaign against Nancy after the primary changed dramatically. I’m hoping these people can live with themselves (I am certain they can) but overall it will be the people of Norco who will suffer because of who they were told was a candidate who “would support the woman’s right to choose (like Nancy wouldn’t or couldn’t) but who isn’t qualified for the job.
ReplyDeleteThe group named Common Cause of New York has been debating the use of Express Vote Machines in that state for the past 4 years. The group concluded in 2020 Express Vote machines are too unreliable because they use a Barcode Scan to determine how the touchscreen was stricken by the voter. It goes on to explain the voter has no way to verify if the Barcode applied by the machine accurately reflects the voter’s intention. In other words, just because there is a paper ballot sample, that sample demonstrates nothing the voter can verify.
ReplyDeleteLook, I don’t know if what Common Cause New York claims is true. How could I?
I DO know Common Cause released a follow-up report just last month. This, after Express Vote claimed it “fixed” the problem. Common Cause New York claims the “fixed” machines did NOT correct anything. They summarize the Express Vote machines (as of last month) are still not right for use in NewYork State.
I found both Common Cause reports to be interesting reading. They do explain in detail why they came to their conclusion of unsuitability. Again, I have no ability to agree, or not agree, with the conclusions of Common Cause New York. They assumptions do seem plausible. Both Reports can easily be found online for those who are interested in learning more.
As the county turns bluer and bluer, it really doesn't deserve Cusick as watchdog. It deserves an ethically challenged math moron who's already plotting her escape from those scary numbers. The moronic electorate has spoken. It wanted a moron to represent it. It elected a moron.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteDuring the canvass, a number of precincts are checked to determine if the paper ballots in those districts agree with the results reported on the flash drive. That's how you know that your intentions are honored.
Does the flash drive indicate anything more than just the number of ballots cast? Is there a breakdown of votes cast for each candidate? What percentage of the total number of precincts available to check are checked? What is all this about bar codes? Last time I voted I don’t even remember seeing a bar code.
ReplyDelete8:30, The flash drive tabulates the votes recorded in each race and is compared to the paper tally. At least one precinct from each of the four council districts is selected for this audit.
ReplyDelete"Barcodes are are a trusted, tested, universal technology used in a variety of ways across many different industries to improve safety, accuracy, speed and efficiency. DMVs,
pharmacies, hospitals, banks and food manufacturers all use barcodes. They are reliable and have been used commercially for more than 50 years. They are used extensively in the medical field where errors could be catastrophic.
"A barcode is a pattern code—a group of lines or blocks and spaces that represent specific characters—that computers can read automatically to identify information in a database. Because barcodes offer a reliable way to accurately read information, the technology eliminates the possibility of many kinds of human error (e.g., poorly marked ballots) and provide a layer of tamper resistance, as they are virtually unmodifiable, especially when employing a check digit or signature. Displayed along with human-readable text, summary cards with barcodes are fully auditable."
Read Judge Paul Diamond's opinion disposing of the frivolous complaints against the XL.
There is no problem with the machine. There is a problem with humans who prepare the software and test it before an election. That is what happened.
Thank you for the further explanation, Bernie. I liked using that machine. Seeing the ballot before sending it on its way was nice.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Zrinski and Sletvold were elected (unexperienced controller) and retained (lawsuit is coming!) is INCREDULOUS..
ReplyDeleteNorthampton County deserves the slop it votes for. UNREAL..
Wow …So if there’s a problem with the humans and they pretest/code/program the machines incorrectly, and the machines fail to do what they and ESS claimed twice it would do….you use frivolous , so place blame anywhere you decide, but know this….there is still no one who will come forward to guarantee these machines , or it’s programmers, will perform in 2024…it’s a dangerous gamble…again!
ReplyDelete2:22, There is nothing wrong with the XL. L.Marinelli, I suggest you read Judge Paul Diamond's opinion in Stein v. Bookvar, which was a direct attack on the Express XL. A nonpartisan "expert" testified in that case, too.
ReplyDeletehttps://casetext.com/case/stein-v-boockvar
Judge Diamond specifically found that this "expert" lacked credibility. Before the trial, the XL went through a rigorous certification and subsequent recertification. This is an open process and takes about four days. Judge Diamond ordered that an XL be produced and made this observation.
"The machine is reliable and easy to use. It is a hybrid device, combining ballot-marking and tabulating/scanning functionalities within a single system. (2/18/20 Tr. 105:1-6; 2/19/20 Tr. 186:22-187:6.) The voter first inserts a blank card into the slot to the right of the screen; this prompts the XL to load the appropriate ballot, which appears on the 32-inch touchscreen. (2/19/20 Tr. 186:25-187:6.) After she makes her selections, the machine prints them, producing a summary card ... .":
Judge Diamond rejected all criticisms as "daft theories" that unfortunately "will undoubtedly shake the belief of some in their government because [Jill} Stein has convinced them that voting integrity is at risk in Pennsylvania."
I do have a problem with last week's election. The state certification provides that "the human-readable text on the ExpressVote XL's paper card is "The official vote of record." If that is so, then the votes in the Panella race would have to count, even if contrary to the flash drive. All other elections were voter verifiable. Fortunately, the Panella retention race was statewide and the problems with the ballot have no impact on his retention.
We know what the error was. We know how it happened. The pre-testing must improve. Emergency ballots equal to the number of registered voters in each election must be provided. The voter verifiable paper ballot was correct in all races except Panella's The fact that his race is wrong is harmless error bc he was retained everywhere else.