Nothing To See Here

I am beginning to wonder if America is capable of having an honest election or if our leaders just like us to work hard for various candidates every two or four years.

On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, several voting machines in multiple districts across Northampton County had to issue emergency paper ballots due to “votes getting flipped and not recording properly” on their voting machines.

Shortly after the error occurred Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure was clearly frustrated about the problems at the polls and told Lehigh Valley News “I’m livid at the election folks and ES&S.”

ES&S (Election Systems & Software) ExpressVoteXL machines were used in Northampton County elections.

Shortly after the machine errors occurred Northhampton County held an emergency press conference and invited Linda Bennett the Senior Vice President of Customer Operations at Election Systems & Software to explain why votes were switched in the retention race between Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor Stabile for the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

When asked by an attendee of the press conference why the voting machines had errors Bennett responded “It was a human error, based on someone from our team that programmed the election.”

She continued “They made a mistake putting the printed text on the card as opposed to the screen. … Someone from our team inadvertently put the wrong name.”

It may be time to go back to paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level.

 

Sometimes Politicians Do Things That Are So Arrogant It’s Almost Funny

The State House in Boston

The State House in Boston (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Thursday the Boston Herald reported that a six-member conference committee of lawmakers in Massachusetts charged with creating a bill to boost government performance, accountability and transparency and increase oversight of spending have decided to hold their meetings in private.

Representative Peter Kocot (D-Northampton) stated:

“Holding open meetings, during which negotiators would discuss differences and seek common ground on bills overhauling government administration and finance laws, might inhibit frank negotiations.

“If you look at the rules of committees, the joint rules, conference committees are not included in those rules. Conference committees operate under a separate set of rules and typically it’s been very common practice in the Legislature to close conference committees so that the members of the conference committee can have a frank and open discussion of the merits of the bills.”

Good grief!

Massachusetts is a one-party state. If you would like more transparency and more honesty in the Massachusetts government, you need to make it a two-party state. Even if you don’t agree with one of the parties, having two parties in government tends to make government more accountable.

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