NorCo Exec Lamont McClure usually speaks extemporaneously. But at last week's Election Integrity hearing of Northampton County Council, he delivered a prepared speech to complain about $10 million in federal cuts to cybersecurity initiatives intended to reduce foreign election meddling by providing cyber threat intelligence, cyber incident response. McClure calls these cuts "nothing short of catastrophic for state and local election officials and poses a significant threat to our democratic processes."
McClure's concerns have been echoed by Pa. Sec'y of State Al Schmidt, who explained these cybersecurity initiatives have alerted county election offices to bomb threats, fake videos of ballots being destroyed and interception of envelopes containing a white powder.
McClure said these cuts are "another glaring example of an Administration that acts impulsively, disregarding the potential fallout of its actions. In the midst of daily chaos, it seems that the needs of our everyday citizens are being overlooked, with no regard for the impact these decisions will have on their lives. The consequences of these decisions will be felt across our communities and will only serve to undermine the trust that is essential to a functioning democracy.
With respect to McClure's claims about election security, Council member John Goffredo expressed some concerns of his own in an exchange with Voting Registrar Chris Commini:
Goffredo: "If I mail out a ballot and then that ballot comes back marked, how do I know who filled out that ballot?"
Commini: "When we get a ballot back, it has a barcode on it, and that barcode is attached to a correspondence number that pertains to that voter. "
Goffredo: "How do we know that voter filled out that ballot? We didn't see it. How do we know?"
Commini later responded, "If you want to commit voter fraud, good luck to you if you get caught. That's the simplest way to put it."
In addition, Goffredo complained about plans to establish a satellite office in Bethlehem for Lehigh University voters who wish to exercise ballot by demand, saying it creates an unfair advantage. Commino rereponded that he is uninvolved in those decisions.
8 comments:
Gee, I don’t know about this one. So, 10 million dollars has been cut from the coffers of 50 states. Sounds like $200,000 per state. Divided further by the number of Counties in each state. NOT MUCH MONEY AT ALL for each state to pay for on its own.
We are repeatedly told the American election process decisions are solely up to will of each state. Well, each State, shift a little money around and do YOUR thing. Let each County chip in some amount less than 10,000 to solve YOUR latest big crisis brought on by President Trump.
McClure should resign if all he’s going to do is campaign for Congress under the guise of being County Executive.
NorCo residents deserve the full-time executive mandated in the county charter.
If McClure had any ethics, he’d do the right thing.
9:22 - I second your motion on all three points.
9:32, The Pa SOS isn't running for anything and raised the same concerns. So have elections officials throughout the country. Counties depend heavily on federal funding for numerous functions, and McClure is doing his job as county exec by raising concerns about cuts that will impact a county core function. If he wanted, he could have run for county exec for a third term and then campaigned for Congress. We have no resign to run law. By the way, Mackenzie ran for Congress while in office as a state rep.
Maybe that is were that 5 million went to. That new offce at Lehigh University. This guy is running for congress and is trying to set up a office for on demand voting in probably the biggest voting block in the county. Oh don't forget the biggest democrat voting block.
LOL this guy just doesn't care.
Guessing the old saying goes. Don't hate the player hate the rules. Lol
Not cheating your not trying.
He's deflecting from his own botched elections. We don't need new rules or more money. We need a competent executive.
So that’s the excuses? It’s not required and the other guy did something similar?
I guess Lame-ont won’t be raising any standards. A competent executive might call his Congressional representative to discuss his concerns. A partisan Executive running for Congress will instead try to blow every concern out of proportion and score points in the press. That he chose to start doing this TWO YEARS BEFORE THE ELECTION makes it particularly appalling.
In any event, I guess McClure wants to be another cog in the machine instead of a leader. Thus he’s already proven his worth, or lack of it.
7:35 AM. Thanks for the clarification. Given all the whining, I thought this was about NC itself losing $10M. Hell, NC's portion is probably less than McClure's catering budget.
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