Mancini Wants Summary Judgement In Delco Election Right To Know Case –Robert Mancini of Media has requested a summary judgement regarding a right-to-know case heard May 24 before Delaware County (Pa) Common Pleas Court Judge Spiros Angelos.
Mancini wants a written admission from the county that the “trusted build validation records” for the county’s Hart Intercivic used in the November 2022 election do not exist. He also wants attorneys’ fees, a civil penalty and other sanctions as assessed by the court.
The hearing was held to determine whether Delco has to give certain elections records sought by Mancini as per right-to-know requests filed last year.
The county initially refused.
So, Mancini appealed to Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records which ruled in his favor.
While the county reluctantly conceded four cases after arbitration, they appealed four others to Common Pleas Court.
Delco just does not want to give the public a numerical list of voters in a Marple precinct; records associated with election machines; a list of applications for mail-in ballots; and other ballot records such as what was discussed with Fort Orange Press of Albany, N.Y., which prints the county’s election ballots.
Why are Delco’s ballots being printed in New York, anyway?
But leave that aside.
The May 24 hearing was to consolidate the cases.
A dispute arose in which Mancini said the County never created the records that he was seeking.
So County Director of Elections Jim Allen took the stand.
Mancini says the county never verified the “trusted build” of the software which is something is required by the state when software is installed or upgraded on voting machines.
Allen said it was something not required for the November 2022 election.
Mancini citing the Elections Assistance Commission says it was.
And that’s where we leave it.
I actually feel a little sympathy for Allen.
Like myself, he’s not a tech guy and our voting system has become pointlessly complicated.
I saw this as a “machine operator” for my precinct during the May 16 Primary.
My precinct didn’t have any serious issues — albeit there was a power outage –and I’m confident the votes were tallied accurately. I don’t trust those machines, however. Not because I thought they were rigged but rather rickety and overly complex. During set up and take down, I saw way too many possibilities for things causing major delays.
The ones assigned to us even had parts missing. Obviously nothing too serious but the lifespan on these expensive devices cannot be long. What if they fail in the middle of the day? It would likely be an hour delay. Yes, voters would be disenfranchised.
With the analog lever machines used two decades ago, winners were almost always quickly determined, and while that was the case in this low-turnout race, the last few cycles saw the norm as otherwise.
We hear Delco Council is going to vote June 7 to replace the tested and highly efficient ink and paper voter lists with electronic pads.
Why? Because they are neat and new? I suspect it’s because we have highly miseducated and rather stupid people running things.
Sorry to be mean but if humanity hopes to survive it better begin considering digital ancillary to analog. This ZeroHedge story foretells our future if we continue to let those like our present leaders stay in office.
And whenever I want to give Allen et al the benefit of the doubt regarding election integrity, they pull a mind-numbed stunt that quashes whatever benefit I was prepared to give.
Hey Jim, why not just give Mancini what he wants? Your argument is that he has to use a process under the Election Code rather than the Right to Know Law. Why not put the principle of public transparency over kommissar-functionarism?
You have any idea how many people in this county think we no longer live in a democracy?
Transparency is the only answer.
Which gets us to yesterday’s story. Delco’s functionaries fought, in violation of state law, to keep candidates and other citizens from seeing mail-in ballot envelopes.
Why? Because our wee wee is bigger? That actually would be the innocent explanation.
So after threats and a Commonwealth Court filing, Delco, again grudgingly, agreed to let The People see the envelopes but with a lot of pointless rules like no photographing.
The People said no, and Delco conceded allowing the photographing.
Then we learn that the county is taping over signatures, which very well may be spoliation of evidence.
“A public record, is a public record, including the electors signature, which is clearly the intent of Act 77, Section 1309, for the public to examine,” said Greg Stenstrom of Glen Mills, who is one of those seeking access. “It is not up to you, or the Delaware County Solicitors, or even Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth to bureaucratically decide what part of the public record you will allow us to see.”
Stenstrom noted that there are multiple ways to redact signatures from photographic images if that should become a requirement.
It’s disconcerting, though, that Delco election officials really don’t want anyone to see if the envelopes are signed.
And on an unrelated matter, we’d like to congratulate Robert Mancini’s daughter El, a student at La Salle, who finished first in the women’ts 10K at the NCAA East Preliminaries. She will advance to the nationals in Texas. Her time was 33:13.35.
Mancini Wants Summary Judgement In Delco Election Right To Know Case