Internet Enabled Poll Pads Considered For Delco — Joy Schwartz, March 1, confronted Delaware County Council with its plan to replace the numbered list of voters, which is paper, with electronic poll pads.
The plan had been revealed earlier that day when a representative for KNOWiNK, an election technology firm, made a pitch to the Election Board.
Mrs. Schwartz, who has the Republican endorsement for this year’s county council race, noted that the poll pads are accessible to the internet and the software that runs them is proprietary.
She noted that the cost of elections has quadrupled over the last few years and things are far less efficient.
Councilwoman Christine A. Reuther responded during council comments that KNOWiNK is offering devices for free and electronic poll pads will soon be required by the state.
Everything offered for free by a for-profit company comes with a price, and proprietary software has no business in elections. Ms. Reuther pats herself on the back for helping de-privatize the county prison and now is just fine with privatizing our elections. Elections should never be privatized and proprietary software is unnecessary on election machines. It would be rather simple for our governments to hire contractors to write election software, which the public would own. We’ve known how to make computers tabulate since the 1940s.
Several other citizens brought up concerns about Delco elections including Kathy Buckley of Edgmont, who responded to an elderly man’s rant about election integrity activists and again described how, while a poll worker, was removed from the Wharf Counting Center the day after the 2022 primary election after she called attention to a unexpected bagful of ballots
We did not attend yesterday’s meeting of the Delaware County Election Board but someone who did tells us that Director of Election Operations Jim Allen admitted that some of the ballots from a Jan. 12 hand recount in the 3rd Precinct of Haverford’s 2nd Ward were printed in Delco and had different shadings.
It had been claimed they all came from the same printer in Albany, N.Y.
https://billlawrenceonline.com/recount-raised-suspicions-in-delaware-county/
When the innocent mistakes add up they stop looking innocent.
The solution is to do a recount in another precinct with the experts on the other side setting the parameters with the understanding the parameters are a precedent-backed standard.