Delaware County Hears Case on Delaying Election Certification

(TNS) — Petitioners hoping to delay the certification of votes within the 2022 Normal Election made their case Monday earlier than Delaware County, Pa., Frequent Pleas Court docket Choose Barry Dozor.

The outcomes of the Nov. 8 election have been anticipated to be licensed by the Delaware County Election Board on Tuesday, although Board Solicitor Nick Centrella mentioned they aren’t really due again to the state till Nov. 28.

Gregory Stenstrom, Leah Hoopes and Nichole Missino filed the petition for an emergency injunction final week alleging the Board and Delaware County Election Bureau “breached their statutory and fiduciary duties” by “mailing official ballots to unverified voters …; deleting at the least 2,778 information of requests for mail-in ballots; by deleting, after Election Day, at the least 194 voter registration information of people whose mail-ballots have been counted within the vote totals; by allowing a partisan third get together to manage and tabulate mail-in ballots; and by adulterating the chain of custody by detouring the election night time journey of the county’s bodily ballots and v-drives for six hours right into a closed constructing, the place ballot watchers have been prohibited from getting into, earlier than persevering with the supply to the centralized counting heart on the Wharf Constructing in Chester.”

Stenstrom of Glen Mills and Hoopes of Bethel Township are each ballot watchers in several precincts. Missino, a Media enterprise proprietor, was the Republican candidate for state Rep. within the one hundred and sixty fifth Legislative District, however misplaced to incumbent Democrat Jennifer O’Mara 21,145 to 13,056, in response to unofficial election tallies.

Stenstrom defined that the plaintiffs have been searching for pictures of all mail-in ballots scanned by counting machines — which additionally {photograph} ballots — so that they could possibly be cross-checked with voter rolls utilizing commercially out there software program.

“The core of what we wish to do is, we simply wish to take mail-in ballots and have a look at them,” he mentioned.

Centrella argued from the outset that the plaintiffs had no standing as ballot watchers or canvassing observers to convey the petition as a result of they might not determine any specific hurt they’d suffered. He mentioned this was clearly an election problem, which requires the affidavits of 20 certified electors in any given race to problem the outcomes, however these had not been supplied for any of the allegations.

Centrella added that it’s established that the board has no fiduciary responsibility to candidates, ballot watchers or canvassing observers, and that there have been no challenges introduced on the day of the election regardless of judges being on responsibility to listen to them.

Dozor mentioned he would think about these arguments, however nonetheless needed to listen to the plaintiffs make their case.

“Until I do this, until we actually vet these points as to their requests for a preliminary injunction, there’s going to be extra innuendo, extra suspicion, extra false data, extra faux information,” he mentioned. “…Reality wants no protection and I need the reality on the document, so these allegations, accusations or innuendos are answered and resolved.”

Day in Court docket

Dozor did attempt to help the plaintiffs, none of whom are attorneys, to get these solutions from the 9 witnesses they known as Monday, together with Stenstrom, although frustrations mounted as court docket guidelines interfered with solicited testimony.

Joan Weber, an accountant with many years of expertise, didn’t qualify as an skilled witness, as an example, and thus was in a position to present little testimony on the allegation that the two,778 requests for mail-in ballots had been requested or deleted.

It was the identical for Robert Mancini, a Marple ballot watcher who mentioned he’s on go away from doing cybersecurity for the Navy, however couldn’t testify to his expertise on these traces as a result of he lacked a curriculum vitae.

Mancini did at the least get to say he noticed one proof sheet for vote tabulations that didn’t embody a hash code for a corresponding “v-drive” used to digitally document vote totals and {that a} machine in Marple was malfunctioning.

Julie Yu mentioned she had gotten video of two individuals she mentioned self-identified as county staff gathering ballots from a drop field in Springfield and taking them to the Flagship Company Heart at 2 W. Baltimore Ave. in Media moderately than the Authorities Heart on Entrance Road.

Yu mentioned she recorded traces of individuals at each places, every of which had a police presence, however was knowledgeable that there have been no ballot watchers or observers on the Flagship constructing. Centrella did stipulate that county staff have been directed to that constructing on election night time however didn’t elaborate on why.

Dozor tried repeatedly to maintain testimony inside the 4 corners of the emergency petition, however the plaintiffs have been in a position to provide some testimony extra carefully associated to a separate, pending grievance alleging the Delaware County Bureau of Elections did not conduct “logic and accuracy” testing on machines that rely mail-in ballots and that roughly 25,000 such ballots have been delivered to “unverified” voters.

Two witnesses mentioned they considered testing on these machines in October that violated the election code, together with that the machines have been set to “check” moderately than “election” mode, that examined ballots weren’t pre-printed and stuffed out, however have been printed on the time of the check, and that “v-drives” used to digitally document vote totals have been “check drives,” not those really used on Election Day.

One different witness claimed to have seen 4 or 5 field vehicles arriving to the Wharf constructing the night time after the election by police escort and seeing an individual tabulate votes take a v-drive right into a again room earlier than returning to plug it into the tabulation machine. One other lady from Marple mentioned Missino had informed her she was listed as “not voted” on rolls, regardless of casting a poll in individual Nov. 8.

Stenstrom testified that he noticed roughly 20,000 to 25,000 mail-in ballots that had been “pre-arranged” on racks by 7 a.m. on Election Day, however he had no potential to examine them or problem their validity.

Stenstrom moreover claimed there was no strategy to examine whether or not ballots despatched to unverified voters had been segregated, that staff needed to repeatedly re-scan ballots kicked out by machines as unreadable, that observers have been unable to see a lot of what the machines have been really doing and that “all the weather of fraud” have been current.

Certifying Voters

However Dozor mentioned he had not heard any testimony to even suspect fraud or dangerous actors throughout hours of testimony Monday and that he turned increasingly more satisfied because the listening to went alongside that Centrella had appropriately recognized the petition as an election problem.

Centrella known as Election Bureau Chief Clerk Laureen Hagan late within the day, who defined that anybody verified via the Statewide Uniform Registry of Voters system maintained by the Division of State could be despatched a mail-in poll upon request.

Voters are verified both via a state-issued identification quantity or Social Safety quantity, she mentioned. Hagan mentioned she had been suggested by solicitors and secretaries of state since at the least 2012 that if an elector is registered however not verified within the system, the regulation requires they nonetheless be despatched a poll pending certification.

Ballots for uncertified voters bodily can’t be counted by the tabulation machines, nonetheless, and can be kicked out to an “points bin” in the event that they undergo the machine, she mentioned. They’re solely counted after the voter has licensed their identification with the state, mentioned Hagan, they usually have till six days after the election to take action.

Further checks are given for licensed voters who do return mail-in ballots as effectively, she mentioned, together with checking signatures. There was one other stage of scrutiny this 12 months to moreover be certain that these ballots have been correctly dated following a Pennsylvania Supreme Court docket determination shortly earlier than the election, Hagan mentioned.

It was unclear late Monday what, if any, determination Dozor had reached on the petition. No new entries had been made on the digital docketing system by press time.

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