What Happened at the Northhampton County Election Board — Someone described as is very active in Northampton County (Pa) politics sent this to our friend Kim Kennedy who sent to us. What we find puzzling is the claim by the board’s solicitor that it is mandated to certify elections by a deadline. Certify, after all, has a meaning:
- To confirm formally as true, accurate, or genuine.
- intransitive verb To guarantee as meeting a standard.
A board can’t declare something to be true if it believes it isn’t, unless the board knows its lying. The mandate makes our entire election system a lie.
Overview of Nov. 21 Northampton County (Pa.) Election Board Meeting
The Board meeting had to be moved to the cafeteria due to well over 100 citizens participating in the meeting, spilling into the hallway. I arrived about 2 pm to meet with people I had emailed to come early in order to strategize and pass out an agenda, issues to raise and PIN materials by Bill Rodebaugh. A press table was set on the side for 4 staff, including LV Live News and Armchair writers, MCall, Bernie O’Hare and a young man who was quite busy on the phone. I made connections for the future with all plus a photojournalist, passing my card out to them and all in the room who was interested. (There was some conflict initially with a few in the audience decrying the reporters putting their pictures in the news. The answer was that “it is a public place and photos are allowed. Call my editor.”)
Eventually it became very warm in the room as the meeting dragged on for four hours till seven pm. Many left after the “Courtesy of the Floor”. I noted to a lawyer that the certifying of the election came before the comments and he was unconcerned, stating the certification was mandatory implying that comments would not change that. I spoke to a Republican Board member and asked this to be changed and it was, not only due to my input but aided by it.
Notable persons in the audience I saw: Glenn Geissinger, Ryan and Milou Mackenzie, Annamarie Robertone, Tom Giovanni,, Andrew Azan, Tom Carroll, Charles Dertinger, Kevin Danyi, Matt Munsey, and Dr. Tom Little. It was largely a mix of LVTP, PIN, and NCRC members with about ten Democrats and several unattached voters.
The process of counting the votes was delayed till that very day due to the “machine glitch”. The county’s 300-plus machines in all 156 precincts flipped “yes” and “no” selections for the two candidates on the printout that voters reviewed on the machine before taking the final step to cast their ballots. No other contests on the ballot were affected, swore Executive McClure at the prior Council meeting. Counting the provisional ballots — about 2,400 total — occurred over the previous few days. 44,791 votes were cast on voting machines and 25,587 by mail. Votes statewide must be certified at the county level by Nov. 21 and submitted to the state no later than Nov. 27, which may have accounted for most of the passion in the room.
There were 45 persons signed up to speak, but three left early. Many of the 45 were quite upset with the county-wide election irregularities that were unable to be fixed and the county having had no backup plan. Voters are at their “peak of mistrust” with the voting system. “ The third speaker complained of switched poll books and machines at Williams Township. I spoke after her and was unable to fully get through Frank DeVito’s two page comment, so the applause surprised me. Others addressed issues including lack of emergency ballots (10 to 25 at most at the polls.), one and a half hours of locked doors at Forks Twp. (a federal offense actually!), people told not to vote at Hanover Twp., that Republicans are the usual victims of error, lack of transparency , and poor communication with election judges. Representative Milo Mackenzie was very passionate about this unAmerican election and demanded McClure’s resignation or there will be national repercussions in 2024. She stated “This is not a Communist country.
It was noted that the “glitch” proved the machines could be programmed to commit fraud. Many demanded paper ballots be used. Glenn Geissinger, NCRC chairman, noted that turning people away from the polls constituted voter suppression and implored the Board not certify the election and not to use these machines again. Geissinger said his research would result in a lawsuit if he finds large numbers of voters were disenfranchised by the machine failures. One asked for a do-over election and about seven who had either won their elections or had their Saucon Valley candidates elected asked to certify the election. Since there was only one microphone to be passed among 8 persons at any time, there was further delay in hearing all the issues, explanations and apologies.
It was obvious that the election judges lacked training in some cases. The decision was made to train every judge, clerk and poll worker in person for the next election. Even though Judge Sam Murray gave a Court order to follow early in the day, communication was poor and not all were able to follow the orders. All provisional ballots were said to have been counted.
Only party chairs were informed of the L&A (logic and accuracy) testing and apparently no Republican showed up, only County and Election Systems and Software (ES&S) staff.
The ES&S VP, Alex Carbullido, apologized profusely and said there would have been no way to fix all the machines on election day. In 2019 the problem was the touch screens were too sensitive which made it difficult to vote one’s choice. In both elections the problem was blamed on human error.
The Board stated they were not consulted on procedures, not informed at the moment and their previous recommendations to Council had been ignored. Scott Hough whose term ends the end of this year along with the other four members, was especially incensed, had many questions and was the only Board member to refuse to sign the certification of the election, so it passed 4 to 1 over many objections. He said there was no way to know how many voters were turned away which put the election results in question. Hough said he had also requested a special meeting for the public to be heard but his request was denied by the Registrar, Christopher Commini. He also asked again for a special meeting to thrash out solutions and Dertinger promised to look into it.
Board member Daniel Lopresti also wanted a written report from ES&S on what had happened, provision of enough paper ballots and better communication with the poll workers.
Board Solicitor Richard Santee explained it was mandatory for the Board to certify the election and send the results to Harrisburg by the 11/27/23 deadline as they had no discretion or authority in the matter. The process is controlled by the administration. The Board spent hours taking the heat for an election they did not actually run. The District Attorney could act on election complaints from the Board, but only a Common Pleas Judge could overturn an election.
It was also noted that the Nazareth area will be split into four voting districts.
(Dertinger has since resigned and I’ve been speaking with others who believe other races were fixed.)
What Happened At The Northhampton County Election Board
I live in Bethlehem, and so, vote in Northampton County. I remember hearing these things on Election Day itself.
As far as the “glitch” goes, I didn’t notice that any of my selections were wrong on the receipt. But I completely agree with the observation about digital voting and fraud. I’ve had that opinion ever since I entered the IT field, at around the same time that election boards across PA started switching from mechanical voting booths and paper ballots to digital systems. Digital systems are more vulnerable. We never should have abandoned paper ballots.
As far as the issue of untrained electors goes, we have had turnover at our station, so there are new electors with no experience. But there didn’t seem to be any issues with casting our ballots.
No one gets turned away, either. As long as the person is in the line at the official closing time, he’ll get to cast his vote.
Now, I concede that my precinct is on the outskirts of the city, so we probably don’t have to handle as many voters as the precincts in Center City. Nevertheless, the polls are open for 13 hours, so there is reasonable accommodation for responsible adults to get in and vote. And of course, thanks to the progressives, absentee balloting is easier than ever.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.