By BERNIE O’HARE

Special to the Bethlehem Press

On Jan. 30 Northampton County’s Elections Commission voted down a proposal to purchase electronic pollbooks to use in this year’s elections (see page Ax). Elections require pollbooks, which are used to check in registered voters. The company that has printed the county’s paper pollbacks for the past 24 years is no longer able to print them, and recommended the county acquire electronic pollbooks (epollbooks).

The Elections Commission’s rejection cast doubt on whether the county would even be able to hold the April 28 primary. This uncertainty has been erased by Northampton County Council. Following five hours of meetings Feb. 6, council voted 7-2 to approve a $311,150 contract with Florida-based Tenex Software Solutions for 350 epollbooks.

Voting “Yes” were Council President Ron Heckman and members Kevin Lott, Kerry Myers, Bill McGee, Peg Ferraro, Bill McGee, Lori Vargo-Heffner. Voting “No” were GOP Council members John Cusick and Tom Giovanni.

These pollbooks will arrive in about six weeks, leaving Voter Registrar Amy Cozze about three weeks to train her staff and pollworkers.

The electronic pollbooks chosen by the county are actually modified iPads, each of which contains a complete list of the registered voters for the entire county. They are the same pollbooks that have been used in Lehigh County for several years. They will be used without WiFi, although pollbooks within a precinct will be able to synchronize with each other through an encrypted blue tooth.

Electronic pollbooks make it easier for voters to check in. Paper pollbooks are far more cumbersome. They are only able to determine if someone is registered within a specific precinct. Poll workers often have to call the elections office to find the correct polling place for citizens who are unsure where to cast their ballot. In contrast to a paper poll book, an epollbook can immediately tell a voter where he should be voting.

Despite these advantages, Northampton County avoided them because they are more expensive than paper pollbooks. Major changes in the Election Code make them more attractive. These changes expand the voter registration deadline and allow applications for no-excuse mail-in ballot up until a week before the election. While these changes are a great convenience for voters, they were the death knell to the county’s paper printer. It would be impossible to print paper pollbooks that would identify all registered voters as well as those who had applied for a mail-in ballot. In stark contrast, an epollbook would include all this information. It would ensure that registered voters could vote. It would also flag those who already received a mail-in ballot.

When first presented with a request to recommend epollbooks, the Elections Commission took a week to think about it. Then, on Jan. 30, they said “No.” During this meeting, chair Maude Hornick insisted, incorrectly, that paper poll books could still be used. In the meantime, the clock was ticking away. County Executive Lamont McClure took the Elections Commission to task in an op-ed (see page AX), called on them to meet again, and then asked county council to approve the pollbooks anyway.

That’s what happened Feb. 6, starting with council’s Finance Committee and then the full council. The Elections Commission did meet again, but was presented with a fait accompli.

At the council meeting, Maude Hornick likened epollbooks to “pouring gasoline on a fire.” She still insisted the county could use paper pollbooks even though Voter Registrar Amy Cozze pointed out that option was impossible without violating state guidelines.

“I think we could learn a lesson from Iowa,” Hornick said, referring to an improperly programmed app that Democrats failed to test. Donald Trump’s campaign, as well as some of those in the Bernie Sanders’ camp, have claimed the caucus was rigged, despite a dearth of evidence. Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale called what happened there “the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process.”

It would later be revealed that Trump supporters were jamming the hot line used to call in results.

Like the Trump supporters in Iowa, Hornick and several members of the GOP county party blasted epollbooks and Northampton County’s XL. The Republicans also accused the county of attempting to suppress the vote.

That was enough for council member Kerry Meyers, who refers to himself as “the new kid on the block.”

“I’m sitting here listening to people complain about machines when people of my generation were beaten, whipped, jailed, hung for the right to vote. And I’m sitting here listening as the only other black face in here, and I’m listening to people talk about stuff that’s important, but is it relevant because you know what? We gotta’ vote. We cannot not vote. And I’m reading in the newspaper if we don’t do this we can’t have an election. That’s bull****. We have to have an election.

“While we’re sitting here talking about voter suppression, you don’t know a damn thing about what voter suppression is,” Meyers said. “Three years ago I went to vote. This is Pennsylvania. Do you believe someone asked me to show him my damn ID? How many of you people had to go through that? I did. It’s ridiculous what we’re talking about right now.”

Not long after Myers spoke, county council voted for the epollbooks. The Elections Commission then met and Hornick continued to complain about her preference for paper poll books and criticized the voter registrar for not having found a printer. Registrar Amy Cozze said only one printer in the state can produce paper pollbooks in accordance with state guidelines, and that printer never returned her calls. But now that the county has ordered epollbooks, there’s no need.

What People Said:

Sandra Pizzolato, Allen Township judge of elections: - “If the paper pollbooks are used, the inspectors will not only have to check in them, but they will have many additional sheets to check for the voter’s name, significantly increasing the sign-in time ... The epollbooks will show if someone voted by mail and will inform the worker that the person cannot vote on the machine. If the epollbooks are not used, the mail ballots cannot be counted until all the pages from all the paper pollbooks have been scanned to see if someone showed up at the polling place to vote besides sending in a ballot. There will not be a final count for the election for a long time.”

Gayle Sanders - “Given the fiasco in the fall with the new voting machines and the disaster of the Iowa caucuses, it’s obvious to me that introducing yet more electronics at the polls is not the way to go.”

Ethan Habriel: “Considering the fiasco we already had, somebody should have been fired ... To go to an epollbook at this time is seriously out of the question.”

Lewis Shupe: “If I had unfettered access to one of these ExpressVote DLs [sic], I could play tetris on it in about an hour.”

Karen Frey, NorCo GOP Committee: “Act 77 just added more chaos to the voters for this presidential election. With the fraud, and I don’t use this term lightly, I find this is suspect ... The voters will perceive this as a voter suppression effort.”

Gerry Pritchard, brother of Maude Hornick and GOP Chair Gloria Lee Snover: - “What will the answer be if it don’t work?”

Dr. Alan Brau, NorCo Elections Commission: - “We took a scientific approach, we communicated with each other ... and there’s really no bias, no motive, no anything, except to serve the voters of this county.

Ron Heckman, Northampton Council president: “This is about voting, which is a core county function. That is what we must do ... “

John Cusick, Northampton Council member: “The reason we’re here is simple, because Donald Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016, and fingers had to be pointed someplace.”

Bill McGee, Northamtpon Council member: “We need to give them the tools that they need and let them do their job.”