Election 2023 Archives - Page 2 of 7

Steve Lucas Seeks To Return Trust To Kennett Township

Steve Lucas Seeks To Return Trust To Kennett Township — Lisa Moore’s embezzlement of $3.249 million from Kennett Township came to light in early 2019 after the township’s bank asked why it was spending money in France.

Ms. Moore, the township manager, was vacationing there.

She would confess the embezzlement which occurred over her nine-year tenure. She had started with the township in 1997 and worked her way to the top job.

Kennett got $1 million back from Ms. Moore and another million from an insurance bond. There is, however, more than a million the township will likely never see. That’s real pain for a place with an 8,300 population.

The lackadaisical attitude to finances and indifference to accepting responsibility got a Republican on the previously all Democrat Board of Supervisors when Geoffrey Gamble beat incumbent Whitney Hoffman in 2021.

Tuesday’s race may flip the board to R.

Incumbent Scudder Stevens chose not to seek another term so Democrat Pat Muller and Republican Steven Lucas are battling to be his replacement.

Kennett supervisors serve six year with one elected every two years.

Lucas is a wealth manager in a partnership with a private firm. He got an electrical engineering degree from the University of New Hampshire via ROTC. He then spent nine years in the Army leaving as captain and company commander of a communication unit.

After getting out, he worked for a Japanese firm building fiber optic equipment while getting an MBA from the University of Texas and that led him to his 18-year career in finance.

“I liked math,” he said.

The supervisors’ attitude towards fiscal issues inspired his campaign.

Like many, he was angered by the Moore matter.

“I don’t feel there was an accountability that happened from the three supervisors that were in charge,” he said. “None of them took responsibility for it. All three of them should have resigned.”

He notes that present supervisors seem to live in a bubble and don’t seem to really consider the needs of the citizens.

Kennett has low crime, for instance, and just a few short years ago had no police department relying on State Police.

Now, it has a 9-member department with talk about taking it up to 16 members.

That’s a pretty big expense for an 8,300 bedroom, quasi-rural community.

Steve Lucas Seeks To Return Trust To Kennett Township — *Steven Lucas*

And then there’s the proposed hiking trail at Chandler Mill Road.

“We see the township spending money on what we think are basically luxury items. For example, we spent $300,000 on consultants for building a trail. We haven’t actually built the trail. Who knows how much the trail is going to cost.”

Is that the best way to spend $300K?

Lucas notes that a visit to Kennett Area Community Services (KACS), which is a private non-profit, revealed to him that 490 township residents a month use it to get food.

Three hundred thousand would go along way into keeping the township’s needy fed.

The only thing the township has done for KACS is give one payment of $5,000 and waive permit fees.

Lucas says it is estimated that KACS provided $480,000 of support to Kennett Township residents just last year.

For what it’s worth, we suspect that there are competent people in the community who would volunteer to design a trail and what they designed would cost a lot less than by those not using their own money.

Maybe the biggest issue for Lucas is the apparent indifference to the wants of the residents by the supervisors.

Voters don’t trust the township because they are frustrated with it and have no faith that they are going to be listened to, he said.

“I’m here to break that wall down and listen to the residents and get their voices heard.”

Steve Lucas Seeks To Return Trust To Kennett Township

Delco Dropbox Matter Resolved

Delco Dropbox Matter Resolved — Here’s some good news about a matter we reported yesterday regarding a Nov. 1 incident at a Lansdowne, Pa. ballot dropbox.

A citizen saw a Delaware County employee he thought behaving suspiciously at a dropbox on Highland Avenue and questioned him with his cell phone camera running.

Rather than offer an explanation, the employee waved his ID, said he was doing his job and drove off.

It now appears the employee was legitimately collecting ballots from the box and not shoving ballots into it as the citizen believed.

Don’t expect any garment rending for reporting this, and rather than condemn the guy who videotaped it, we are going to give him the highest praise.

We are going to chastise Delco, however, for its, expected, incompetence. Workers should be trained to make it obvious they are only removing ballots, not inserting them, and, if confronted, provide a calm explanation. This does not mean saying “I’m doin my job” and driving off.

They should also calmly pass on contact information to concerned citizens about making a report or getting details.

This isn’t rocket science. Telling employees to do this isn’t asking them to storm Omaha Beach.

The best solution, though, is to get rid of dropboxes.

Delaware County has much more than Philadelphia and Allegheny counties combined despite being smaller than both.

Mail-in ballots are meant to be used in US mailboxes and mailboxes don’t cost the county a penny.

Yes, the cost of dropbox maintenance is significant.

Mailboxes are accessible 24/7 and the county doesn’t have to pay anyone to collect from them.

Why hasn’t County Council done this?

Hey, it’s not their money.

Delco Dropbox Matter Resolved

Dropbox Mule Caught In Delaware County Pa?

Dropbox Mule Caught In Delaware County Pa? — Updated here.

This video is being passed around by the police departments in Delaware County, Pa. and the powers-that-be in the courthouse know about it.

The confrontation occurred after a resident thought he saw this fellow stuffing things into a ballot dropbox on Highland Avenue in Lansdowne about 9:15 a.m., yesterday, Nov. 1.

Police were called after he left and have his name. A report was taken.

The election is Nov. 7.

Three judges — Richard M. Cappelli, Barry C. Dozor, and William Chip Mackrides — who won their seats 10 years ago as endorsed Republicans are up for retention elections.

The Soros Democrats have targeted them.

That a judge, much less three, without serious controversy or scandal would be targeted for removal in a retention vote is unprecedented.

Most voters will vote to retain or not bother filling in the circle generally.

This makes the judges, however, a soft and unexpected target for a ballot stuffing attack.

It dovetails well with what Elon Musk said.

“(George) Soros realized that you don’t need to change the laws, you just need to change how they are enforced,” Musk said. “If nobody chooses to enforce the laws or if the laws are differentially enforced it’s like changing laws”

Get out and vote Tuesday.

The higher the turnout, the harder it is going to be to steal the election.

Make sure you vote to retain the three judges.

Dropbox Mule Caught In Delaware County Pa

Candidates In Commonwealth Court Race Have Military On Resumes

Candidates In Commonwealth Court Race Have Military On Resumes — Republican-endorsed Megan Martin is facing Democrat-endorsed Matt Wolf to fill a vacancy Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.

Commonwealth Court is where civil actions against the Commonwealth start and where appeals are made regarding decisions in county courts of common pleas, and state agencies.

Megan Martin is a native Delaware Countian, the fifth of six children. She moved to Central Pennsylvania to attend Law School. She graduated Widener U Law School and now lives in Mechanicsburg with her husband, Scott, three children and a dog in Mechanicsburg, Pa.

She has served as an attorney for the United States Navy, and all three branches of the Pennsylvania Government.

“I checked my politics at the door of the capitol every day,” she says.

Ahe states she broke the glass ceiling at the Senate “by becoming the first and only woman to serve as it’s secretary-parliamentarian since the position was created in statute more than 100 years ago.”

In November 2022, she received the Widener Law Commonwealth Excellence in Public Service Award.

Matthew Wolf is a second-generation lawyer who graduated from Rutgers University in Camden.

He is supervising judge for the municipal division of The Philadelphia Municipal Court.

He says he did a lot of work “for recovery homes under the Fair Housing Act fighting attempts to shut them down.” He has been a Lawyer for a quarter of a century. He also worked to reduce the impact arising from evictions filed during the pandemic by requiring pre-filing meditation

Wolf served as an officer in the United States Army Reserve from 2003 to 2020 and, after resigning his commission, serves as a drilling enlisted Cavalry scout soldier in Alpha Troop, 1st Squadron, 104th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division.

Candidates In Commonwealth Court Race Have Military On Resumes

Chesco Wipes Protected Count From Voting Machines

Chesco Wipes Protected Count From Voting Machines is courtesy of ChescoUnited:

The Voter Services department in Chester County, Pennsylvania has wiped the “protected counts” off their voting machines, raising questions about their motives. This unexpected act was revealed to observers while voting machines were undergoing normal “logic and accuracy” testing in preparation for the upcoming November 7, 2023 Municipal Election.

As explained by Karen Barsoum, Chester County Director of Voter Services, the protected count on a voting machine should be the total number of ballots put into the machine over its lifetime, which accumulates up like a car’s odometer.

When thinking of a car, you can reset the trip odometer, but should not be able to roll back the lifetime odometer. Since the protected counts on voting machines are supposed to be “protected,” hence the name, why would the county eliminate this history? Why would county elections officials not want anyone to be able to see on the machine itself how many ballots went into it previously?

In the county’s defense, they stated that they made a log of all the protected counts recorded from each machine. This is according to an observer that was present. The concern is, did they have Democrat and Republican observers when they recorded the protected counts? Was it just the Voter Services staff present? Was it just the ES&S vendor? How can they prove the count they wrote down is accurate?

According to the same observer, another observer present asked why the change was made. At first, a Voter Services employee explained that the voting machine protected counts were wiped as part of a system upgrade that was performed in the summer, and that they had problems with the protected count in the past. This answer causes many questions to come to mind: What problems was this employee referring to? Where are the problems documented? What was the effect? These questions must be asked and answers must be provided by the county.

When Karen Barsoum explained the change, she also stated that the protected counts were cleared when there was a system upgrade over the summer. She said it was a state-certified upgrade to a new version of software (EVS 6300) – and that every county with ES&S machines in PA received this upgrade. As part of the upgrade, they removed the memory cards from the machines and replaced them with higher capacity memory cards. It was likened to changing a camera’s memory card. The question now is who has the old memory cards that were taken out of the voting machines? Are they in the possession of the county or does ES&S have them?

Chester County officials removing protected counts reminds the public of the problems uncovered in Mesa County, Colorado in 2021. This was when Dominion Voting Systems installed what they called a “Trusted Build” update on their Election Management System in May of 2021, which was ordered by the Colorado Secretary of State. According to the Mesa #3 report, this update destroyed critical election records on the EMS hard drive.

According to an additional, Mesa # 1 report, “Federal law requires the preservation of election records – which includes records in electronic or digital form – for twenty-two months after an election. Forensic examination found that election records, including data described in the Federal Election Commissions’ 2002 Voting System Standards (VSS) had been destroyed on Mesa County’s voting systems, by the system vendor. Because similar system modifications were reportedly performed upon county election servers across the state, it is possible, if not likely, that such destruction in violation of state and federal law has occurred in numerous other counties.”

This leads us to wonder if anything else was erased from the county’s voting machines, especially our Election Management System, that has not been disclosed to the public.

Other issues that must be addressed are the problems with the Chester County voter rolls and how the Board of Elections is going to eliminate the possibility of people casting fraudulent ballots using names listed in the voter rolls which are ineligible to vote.

Chesco Wipes Protected Count From Voting Machines is courtesy of ChescoUnited:

Upbeat Delco Ticket Takes 2 Hours Of Questions In Havertown

Upbeat Delco Ticket Takes 2 Hours Of Questions In Havertown — Republican candidates had a two-hour conversation, tonight, Nov. 1, with Delaware County residents at the Nunan – Slook American Legion Post in Havertown, Pa.

They were upbeat and united. They happily noted how their opponents were dumping beaucoup dollars into advertising filled with over-the-top smears.

Jeff Jones

Jeff Jones, who is seeking a seat on County Council, said they were going to do to the incompetent incumbents what Buster Douglas did to Mike Tyson.

Granted, Tyson was never considered incompetent.

Jones grew up in Camden, N.J. but ended up in Delco after falling in love with a girl moving to Drexel Hill. He married her and that’s where he ended up raising his family.

He said those running for office either “seek power or seek principle” and all the county Republican candidates are in it for the principle.

“We are not doing this to be attorney general,” he said, giving a dig at incumbent District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer’s already begun campaign to be Pennsylvania’s next attorney general.

Jones talked about how Upper Darby schools are in decline and truancy has exploded. He said this happened when the district raised the start of the school day to 9:45 a.m.

Parents have to be at work hence not around to make sure their kids get to class, he pointed out.

He said former Democrat opponents are helping him in his council race.

Upbeat Delco Ticket Takes 2 Hours Of Questions In Havertown

Beth Stefanide-Miscichowski, who is running for district attorney, with county council candidates Joy Schwartz, Bill Dennon and Jeff Jones

Bill Dennon

Jones’ running mates for council are Upland mayor Bill Dennon and retired school teacher Joy Schwartz.

Dennon, whose full-time job is as a maintenance mechanic, grew up in the trades. He said his father, a truck driver, made him help him fix his cars as a boy before freeing him to play.

He said crime is out of control is his community which borders Chester due to the county Democrats’ woke policing policies.

Dennon said the D.A. is putting serious offenders on ankle bracelet monitoring due to closure of Delco’s juvenile facility. He said the youths are cutting the bracelets off without repercussions. The bracelets cost over $1,000 apiece.

Joy Schwartz

Mrs. Schwartz noted she is the daughter of immigrant parents who lived in tyrannies. Her father grew up in the Soviet Union and her mother in Franco’s Spain. She said her paternal grandmother spent nine years in a gulag and her maternal grandfather spent a year in a concentration camp on the Canary Islands as one of Franco’s political prisoners.

Mrs. Schwartz taught history in the William Penn School District for 20 years before retiring just before Covid. She took the school’s the mock trial team to state competitions.

The school district, which consists of the boroughs of Aldan, Colwyn, Darby, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon, is not considered among the county’s elites.

The Democrats are attempting to frame Mrs. Schwartz as an “election denier” because she has been questioning the actions by Democrat-controlled council that do the opposite of creating confidence in voting.

Why just this morning we wrote about one of them.

Mrs. Schwartz said she prefers the term election verifier and has noted during her campaign that the council’s new spending will increase the tax bills of residents by 35 percent next year and the increases won’t stop if they keep power.

Beth Stefanide-Miscichowski

Beth Stefanide-Miscichowski, who is running for district attorney, said her long legal career has included being a Delco prosecutor where she convicted rapists and murders and ended up running the DA’s juvenile division; being a public defender; and having a well-established private practice specializing in elder law and estate planning.

She said crime is up 25-percent in Delaware County; murders are going unsolved, and that a murder in Upper Darby last week has caused the township to literally double its five-year annual average with two months remaining in the year.

She said Upper Darby has but eight police officers on the street at any given time when not so long ago the number was 20.

And Stollsteimer is refusing to prosecute petty theft cases, a point reinforced by Bill Dennon, who described his personal experience with an incorrigible local thief, and audience members who said Stollsteimer has directed police chiefs to not prosecute shoplifters.

She brought up the incident where the unstable Stollsteimer berated her at a public event for daring to contest the re-coronation to which he feels entitled.

She said the county legal bills were four times higher than under the Republicans due to its reliance on expensive outside law firms.

The only county-wide candidate missing was Dawn Getty Sutphin who had a prior commitment. She’s running for Common Pleas Court judge. She is far more qualified than her opponent.

Experience Is Question In Delco Judge Race

Experience Is Question In Delco Judge Race

By Bob Small

The women fighting for the Delaware County Common Pleas Court seat open this Nov. 7 are Democrat Rachel Ezzell Berry and Republican Dawn Getty Sutpin.

Experience Is Question In Delco Judge Race

Rachel Berry is Delaware County’s register of wills having won the post in 2021. She graduated magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was the book review editor of the Michigan Law Review. she served as law clerk to Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Stephanie Klein of the Delco Court of Common Pleas. and also worked at Dechert LLP law firm

She started at Delaware County Community College while working evenings as a waitress and coffee barista in Media. She now lives in Middletown with her husband and children.

Dawn Getty Sutphin received her J.D. from Widener University School of Law and her L.L.M. from Villanova University School of Law. Her resume includes practicing at Ballard Spahr Andrews and Ingersoll, handling environmental compliance and litigation matters for PECO. She has served in the public defenders office representing indigent juveniles in the Court of Common Pleas. Besides her practice, she is an adjunct professor at Lancaster Bible College.

She has worked for Bob Edgar’s campaign for the US House and, while at Penn State, interned with the Penn State Police Department, among other stops on her journey.

For a detailed look at her resume, see Dawn Getty Sutphin for Judge Court of Common Pleas

For information about her practice visit Dawn Getty Sutphin, Attorney at Law – Prospect Park, PA – FindLaw

“My judicial philosophy is common sense application of judicial restraint without personal or political preference,” she said.

The other judicial elections involve one judge running unopposed and five Judicial Retention Questions.

Experience Is Question In Delco Judge Race

Delco Candidate Town Hall Tomorrow

Delco Candidate Town Hall Tomorrow — Republican candidates for Delaware County seats will hold a town hall, 7 p.m., tomorrow, Nov. 1, at America Legiion Post 338, 2200 Grasslyn Ave., Havertown, Pa. 19083.

Scheduled to answer questions are Betrh Stefanide who is running for district attorney; and county council candidates Jeff Jones, Joy Schwartz and Upland Mayor Bill Dennon.

4 Seek 2 Seats For Pennsylvania Superior Court

4 Seek 2 Seats For Pennsylvania Superior Court

By Bob Small

Two seats are up on Pennsylvania Superior Court and those seeking them are Maria C. Battisa and Harry F. Smail Jr. on the Republican ticket; and Jill Beck and Timika Lane on the Democrat one.

The court was established in 1895 and is one of two statewide intermediate appellate courts. It hears appeals in criminal and most civil cases from county courts of common pleas; and matters involving children and families.

Terms are 10 years and the court is headquartered in Harrisburg.

Maria C. Battista received her Juris Doctorate from Ohio Northern University. She has worked with the Pennsylvania Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and currently works for the Judge group in Wayne, Pa..

She has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania FOP.

Jill Beck is a graduate of Duquesne Law School. She has worked at Kids Voice a private nonprofit representing Allegheny County abused, at-risk, and neglected children. At Blank Rome, she was co-chair of their working group aimed at protecting the right to protest. She worked for a decade as a clerk with Justice Christine Donahue. She has also focused on representing “low-income criminal defendants.” Shlives in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh with “her husband, two children, and their rescue dog”.

Timika Lane has her law degree from the Rutgers University of Law-Camden. She was elected to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in 2013 and has also served as a chief legal counsel for the Pennsylvania Senate. Her philosophy is that “litigants are not just names on a pleading”.

She sees the greatest threat to the practice of law as “ keeping up with the changes of technology and its effect on traditional methods of litigation.”

She also worked for Habitat for Humanity during Hurricane Katrina,.

Harry F. Smail, Jr. has been a Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court judge since being appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014. He attained his Duquesne University of Law Degree while working as a full-time Probation/Parole Officer. He has also worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office of indigent defendants.

‘I do not legislate from the bench; rather, I apply and enforce the law as intended as the third branch of government providing the checks and balances that make our government functional,” he said.

He is a member of The Federalist Society

He states his opinions “have a 97 percent affirmation rate.”

He said that his decisions about setting aside ballots without the required dates were affirmed by Commonwealth Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

He lives in Westmoreland County with his wife and two daughters.

Bro Of Porn-Sharing Justice Vs Pioneering Female Judge In Pennsy Supreme Court Race

Bro Of Porn-Sharing Justice Vs Pioneering Female Judge In Pennsy Supreme Court Race

By Bob Small

When Pa. Chief Justice Max Baer died on 9-30-22, it necessitated this year’s Pa. Supreme Court race.

On the ballot are Democrat Daniel D. McCaffrey and Republican Carolyn Carluccio.

McCaffrey is a Temple School of Law Graduate. He was an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia (1991-97) and is a US Army veteran.

He seems to be the only Democrat endorsed by The Pennsylvania Federation of Police (PaFOP); The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association (PSTA) and The Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association (PSCOA)

He’s also endorsed by the usual suspects, such as Planned Parenthood Votes, and Reproductive Freedom for All.

McCaffrey has pointed out his liberal “bona fides” in these:

U.S. Supreme Court’s recent conservative rulings a key issue in fall Pa. Supreme Court race

PA Supreme Court Candidate Interview: Dan McCaffery

McCaffery’s brother Seamus was a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice but was forced out in a porn email scandal, in 2014.

Bro Of Porn-Sharing Justice Vs Pioneering Female Judge In Pennsy Supreme Court Race — *Daneil McCaffrey’s brother Seamus was once on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court*

Judge Carolyn Carluccio is the first female president judge on the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.

She is “highly recommended by the Pennsylvania Bar Association.”. She lives with her husband Tom, in Blue Bell and they have raised three children. Mrs. Carluccio has also served as the “first-ever Chief Public Defender for Montgomery County”.

Mrs. Carluccio says she wants a justice system that is “Fair and impartial”

McCaffery, Carluccio vying for Pa. Supreme Court seat [Voters Guides …

She is endorsed by the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and has also said she rejects “judicial activism” and remarks that “women’s reproductive rights are protected by Pennsylvania Law”.

“We will uphold that law and only the Governor and Legislature can change it,” she said.

Other groups supporting her include The Commonwealth Leaders Fund and the Pa Future Fund.

“The Legislature is elected to make law,” she says.

She notes, though, that the judiciary has the power to overturn law clearly erroneous.

Bro Of Porn-Sharing Justice Vs Pioneering Female Judge In Pennsy Supreme Court Race

Category: Election 2023

Steve Lucas Seeks To Return Trust To Kennett Township

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Delco Dropbox Matter Resolved

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Dropbox Mule Caught In Delaware County Pa?

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Candidates In Commonwealth Court Race Have Military On Resumes

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Chesco Wipes Protected Count From Voting Machines

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