At Northampton County Council's May 21 meeting, Executive Tara Zrinski reported that the Spring Primary went "smoothly," In reality, there were a number of problems. Before the election, some voters received ballots for the wrong party while others actually received duplicate ballots. As a result of redistricting, some party committee members were incorrectly listed in the wrong district while others were completely omitted. And on election day, epollbooks showed that voters were eligible to vote in person even though they had previously sent in mail-in-ballots (MIBs). These kinds of errors undermine public confidence in the elections process and need to be addressed. Northampton County's Elections Comm'n, however, is going to continue doing exactly what is causing this problem by requiring elections workers to do too much.
The Elections office is already statutorily tasked with conducting what amounts to three elections every cycle. There's in-person voting at the polling place, mail-in ballots and ballot-by demand. Last year, the county also decided to add a satellite office on Bethlehem's south side for four weeks so that people could either apply for MIBs or vote ballot by demand. Two people had been diverted from their usual duties to make it easier for people to vote. "That was not well attended," admitted Voter Registrar Chris Commini.
In addition to the satellite office, the county decided this year to stage "pop up" elections at Lafayette College (31 votes) Northampton Community College (3 votes), Upper Mt Bethel Tp Municipal Building (handful) and Lower Saucon (handful. To run these four pop-up events, elections workers had to be diverted from their usual duties.
I understand and fully appreciate the importance of engaging as many voters as possible. But before conducting pop-ip elections or establishing satellite offices, county officials should be able to demonstrate that they con conduct the elections they are statutorily required to conduct with ease. Based on the past few elections, it's pretty clear that they need to focus on what they are required by law to do before branching out.
At yesterday's meeting of the elections commission, nine people (elections judges and Republican party members voiced their concerns. What they had to say was summed up best by Matt Flower, who said that the elections failures fell into three categories - redistricting failures, training failures, and election system failures.
Redistricting failures. "Election registrar Chris Commini testified 4 times that no elected office would be impacted by redistricting.After the petition circulation period had already begun, they issued an email acknowledging that elected offices had in fact been affected. The consequences were real.In Upper Nazareth Township and Forks Township, both municipalities affected by redistricting, candidates appeared on the ballot in precincts, where they did not reside and were omitted from precincts, where they were legally eligible to hold office. In other cases, elected officials had their positions extinguished with no individualized notice.
Training failures. "In Wind Gap, poll workers were observed allowing voters to choose either party's primary ballot regardless of voter registration status. This procedural defect allows members of opposing parties to influence each other's primary elections. In Bath, the judge of elections was observed instructing that individuals who already voted would not be permitted back into the voting area, and that it did not matter whether they possessed valid poll watcher credentials. A clear violation of election law.
Election system failures. "Electronic poll books were not updated before the polls opened to identify voters who had already cast mail-in ballots. As a result, voters who already voted by mail could still appear eligible to vote at the polls, and the primary safeguard against duplicate voting was not functioning for a substantial portion of the election day.
These are not isolated mistakes. They are part of a pattern. Election integrity is measured by execution. Accurate ballots, accurate poll books, properly trained election workers. These are the core functions of election administration. When election administration failures become recurring events as they have in Northampton County, public confidence begins to erode. ... The voters of Northampton County are not asking for perfection. We are asking for competence.
Based on these issues, GOP Comm'n members Scott Hough and Shawn Welch suggested that the county suspend any pop-up elections in November. But they were outvoted by Democratic Commission members Sharon Gavin-Levy, Richard Groff and Becky Bartlett. Groff said the county could simply hire more people to help run elections, but the reality is that it takes several cycles for a temp or even a full-time worker to understand the system.
I understand why the Democrats voted as they did. But I believe the county should focus on doing what the law mandates before getting into things that would be nice to see. In November, when turnout is going to be much higher, these mistakes are going to grow.
25 comments:
But democrats need confusion to ensure the right result in a close race. Those pop up locations help in that regard.
Without pop-up voting, cheating will be stopped. Democrats require cheating to win. This isn't difficult to understand. Election integrity is stupid. Democrats winning isn't. Cheating in elections is as American as apple pie and Democrats getting nasty when you take away their slaves and give blacks the right to attend public schools and vote. It's the essence of the party's history.
That’s quite a new definition of “went smoothly”
Serious problems with ideas to begin to address them but will Northampton County do it? Of course not. No it will wait to see if problems continue, become more numerous or totally blow up the election in November. Mr. Flower and Mr. Welch summed it up (one identifying problems and another analyzing that information and proposing a way to begin to address the problems). Are all of the Democrats afraid of Tara? If so it’s more than the Election Process at risk in Northampton County.
Typical government logic, consistency is good, even if it is negative
Note to TZ: Time to clean house. Don't be a LM and reward incompetence. (see where that got him).
Norco - where failure is always the first option
NORCO democrat motto; We will never allow ourselves to be swayed by the truth or facts.
This is the problem with government. They double and triple down on bad policies and practices purely for political reasons.
Election deniers trying their hardest to spew their BS and Bernie reporting on it is normal NC rag news. You all act like every election in the country has zero glitches. Maybe you should be reporting on how NC overcomes the glitches and has fair elections.
What do you expect from politicians.
Bring back Dertinger.
This is a specialty area requiring in depth knowledge of the law election code and "LAWS". It appears that Northampton County is reluctant to bring someone on Board with the knowledge and the credentials to head that department. Actually, the blame for all of this falls on the Election Commission of Northampton County. The present day laws are very clear of their responsibilities and conducting an election on election day is at the top of the list. They must be knowledgeable about the laws. They are an independent body and should hire their own legal counsel to keep them on the straight and narrow free from any interference from the Administration. You had problems with McClure as the head of the County and those problems still orevail. Is he meddling as a member of the solicitor's staff? He shouldn't be involved.
Insanity…..doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. How about this county tries running one election that goes right and then look at going forward with ideas?
The elections commission is "independent" only when it does what the admin wants. It does NOT have its own lawyer and has no say in how elections are administered, despite the plain language of both statute and Home Rule Charter. It exists as an arm of the administration with no real say in the use of assets or selection of personnel. In some ways, that actually makes sense. You do not want a runaway authority of unelected officials spending our money. In most counties, the elections commission actually is the board of commissioners except during years in which the comm'rs are elected I believe it is time to revise the Elections Commission so that it includes Council members and the Exec. Then I believe it would be closer to what is intended in the elections code.
8:49, If these folks had come in and said that elections were stolen, etc., or if they had made allegations that were debunked several times, I would have blasted them. But they didn't. Although there were petty complaints from people like Mary Wozniak, who is hopelessly partisan, the issues raised were not refuted. In truth, the redistricting did affect the election insofar as county committee members are concerned. In truth, some voters did receive the wrong ballots ... again. In truth, some people received two ballots. In truth, the epollbooks were sent out without being updated, which could have resulted in some people voting twice. (That did not happen). I say this is truth because the Registrar conceded it was true. And there are always training errors. It's what happens when people are asked to do something they only do two days a year.
We are simply asking for too much from elections officials with too little result. I do not think it is a good idea to send two paid elections office workers to man a satellite office for four weeks when the result is three or four votes. Nor do I think that sending them to pop up events is helpful because the return on investment (votes) simply is not there. It was worth the effort at Lafayette, but nowhere else. When we stress out people and make them move in 20 different directions at the same time, they are bound to make mistakes like what we have been seeing. The best way to prevent a recurrence is by making their task a little easier for now. Once they are able to eliminate the major errors (there will always be some), we can try to reach out more.
Right out of the Dems playbook- we're the only Country in the world that does such stupid things.
only in Northampton County
As Ron Heckman would say: there are no perfect elections.
There have always been issues. Now we have real issues and people making up other issues.
Having confusing election procedures is all by design. This keeps the doors wide open for “mistakes” to happen in someone’s favor. Both political parties are in on the game being played. Election results in America are not as legitimate as they should be. But, we’re not supposed to know this.
I just rejected a comment that bashes Trump and MAGAa. This post has nothing to do with either. Its subject is the administration of a county election and the problems experienced related to redistricting, training, and a screw-up with the epollbooks. It covers a motion to eliminate pop-up elections, at least for now, based on the inference that overtaxing elections workers is bound to result in mistakes. Please limit comments to those issues. I will reject the usual partisan banter. They are unhelpful.
I respect your decision the comment was a reply to a negative comment on ALL democrats
The Dems should resign for dereliction of duty.
The entire election process was apparently a mess this time. Not sure where you were that day, Bernie. It doesn’t matter since the election process in Norco is dead for the next four years.
Fair enough.
Post a Comment