Northampton County’s election last November was supposed to be a relatively quiet municipal race. It was instead, an unmitigated disaster. Last week’s presidential primary was predicted to be a trainwreck. It went off without a hitch, and with the same voting system used in November. This was a pleasant surprise and relief to county council members. They expressed their gratitude to Voter Registrar Amy Cozze and her staff at their June 4 meeting.

Why the XL?

Northampton County had a perfectly fine touchscreen voting system. It would have been better if it included a paper trail, but the useful life of this system still had a few good years. Then came Governor Tom Wolf.

In order to settle a federal lawsuit filed by failed presidential candidate Jill Stein, Wolf agreed to order all 67 counties to have new voting systems in place with paper trails in time for the 2020 presidential primary. He never bothered to discuss this settlement in advance with the counties that would be actually be shelling out the money. He also gave no thought to the logistical burden this order imposed.

Northampton County scrambled. Administrator Charles Dertinger, fortunately, has had considerable experience over the years in the selection of three different voting systems for the county. Council members also familiarized themselves with different systems displayed by vendors at state conferences.

Dertinger liked the ExpressVote XL, the Cadillac of hybrid voting systems. It is the best of both worlds, combining the simplicity of a touch screen with a voter-verifiable paper trail. Acting Voting Registrar Amy Hess liked the XL too. At this time, Amy Cozze was working for the county and was tasked with coming up with the best system, regardless what anyone else thought. She independently decided on the XL. So did Fiscal Affairs Director Steve Barron, who concluded it was actually cheaper in the long run than other systems.

Around this time, Lehigh County was also considering several systems. It scheduled a demonstration of at least four, including the XL, for election judges. Lehigh County Voting Registrar Tim Benyo kindly agreed to allow about 30 NorCo election judges to participate. They overwhelmingly went with the XL. This system was also the choice of the county elections commission in a 3-2 vote.

County council delayed a decision because a group of “better elections” advocates accused members of failing to do their homework. These paper ballot purists dismissed the recommendation of elections judges to argue for a pure paper ballot solution. They dismissed concerns from election judges that it would be difficult to vote in private.

After Delaware conducted a successful election with the XL, council members finally decided on this system in an 8-1 vote, with former council member Bob Werner being the sole no vote. Council was warned again that they were making a terrible mistake.

Unfortunately, they were.

November nightmare

It was unknown at the time, but the XL was a ticking time bomb that exploded once the polls opened. As many as 70 percent of the machines had been improperly aligned at the factory, making them hypersensitive. This flaw showed up most prominently in the judicial retention races. This quickly caught the attention of judges. They issued a flurry of court orders throughout the day. They even sent constables with orders to be read to one and all.

This was only the beginning of the nightmare. When the polls closed, and machines began tabulating results, the cross-filed races were clearly wrong. Judicial candidate Abe Kassis, who was one of three candidates for judge, had zero votes.

When the back-up paper ballots were scanned, he actually won.

At this point, all the voting machines and equipment were impounded. The XL vendor, Electronic Systems and Software, was soon able to determine that it had screwed up big time. In addition to the improper alignment, it had failed to program the races correctly, resulting in zero votes for some candidates in cross-filed races. To complete this symphony of errors, the vendor also botched the logic and accuracy testing that should be performed on each voting machine before an election.

Northampton County made headlines throughout the country. A procession of paper ballot purists appeared at council meetings to say, “I told you so.” Some county officials were accused of being bribed, a charge that infuriated County Executive Lamont McClure.

Though what had happened was no reflection on Acting Registrar Amy Hess, the pressure was too much for her. She stepped down. Fortunately, she stayed in her position as chief deputy.

Two Amys

In stormy waters, McClure selected Amy Cozze to head the elections office. She was immediately confronted by hurricanes from a new elections commission that wanted to scrap the XL without giving the vendor an opportunity to reclaim its good name. They rejected her request for epollbooks, even though no paper pollbook printer could do the job. On top of all this, she was going to have to process no-excuse mail-in ballots for the first time.

Cozze had one thing going for her: her staff. Amy Hess, a veteran of many elections, was willing to stay on as deputy, and the duo quickly became known as the “Two Amys.” She also had an excellent and unflappable staff of Richard Kessler and Jenna Gerbino.

Executive McClure took the request for epollbooks to county council. Both party bosses united to throw up roadblocks. They wanted the county to scrap the system in favor of paper ballots, even though such a daunting task was at this point logistically impossible. County council was again accused of failing to do its homework. Though pressured, council stood by the XL. Members also agreed to the epollbooks because there really was no choice.

Then COVID-19 hit. Governor Tom Wolf delayed the primary until June 2, but was unwilling to delay any longer. So that Tuesday, Northampton County conducted its election in a pandemic. Many pollworkers, who are elderly and at-risk, bowed out.

The two Amys managed to find or retain 850 pollworkers at all 156 precincts. They refused to combine precincts, as many counties did, because voters would spend more time waiting. They had runners visit each precinct twice throughout the day, and every judge was armed with a cellphone so there could be constant communication with the main office.

NorCo was the first in the state to complete the count at 10 p.m., just two hours after the polls closed. The count included 25,661 ballots cast at the polls as well as a record-smashing 36,460 mail-in votes. Amazingly, the mail-in votes were all counted by about 9 p.m.

Critics are now saying NorCo was #1 only because it had superior technology. McClure pointed out that this is the same technology ridiculed in November.

A delighted (and

relieved) council

Cozze was summoned before a delighted council. She credited her staff, not technology.

“I cannot say enough about my staff,” she said. “The hours that were put in to make this happen, and I didn’t have to beg them to do it. They were there seven in the morning every day until seven, eight, nine, ten o’clock every night, Saturdays, full days .... . They can say what they want about the technology, but that is not what made this election go smoothly. “

Cozze predicted it will be “twice as hard going forward” and has already compiled a “laundry list” of things that need to be done. She believes there will be 100,000 mail-in ballots in November, and an in-person turnout of 50,000.

Council member Lori Vargo-Heffner said, “I have nothing but compliments ... I can’t say enough about the experience. It is single-handedly the best voting experience I’ve ever had in my life.”

Vargo-Heffner related that a pollworker told her, “I hated the thought of these things [epollbooks], but I love it.”

“Anybody who came in here and trashed it should have gone to vote on Tuesday,” Vargo-Heffner continued. She said Cozze should give her staff “a day off or some Rita’s or something.”

“I’ll second those comments,” added council member John Cusick. “I, too, voted in person ... When I saw those results come out as early as they did, I was shocked. I’ve never seen results come in that early in this county. Kudos to you.”

He laughingly warned Cozze, “What’s going to happen is that the state is going to be calling you and you’ll be asked to give advice and talks around the commonwealth.”

Council President Ron Heckman called the election “a great experience. The epollbook was flawless ... The light was great.”

Council member Kevin Lott had one complaint. “I did not get an ‘I voted’ sticker.” Then he confessed he voted by mail.

“I’ll put that in a budget amendment,” Cozze quipped.

“Give him a sticker and a lollipop,” Heckman added.

Unfortunately, there will be no national news stories spotlighting the success of the XL. Good news tends to be boring, but Northampton County officials will take it.