Congratulations to Dick Smith and Vinny Gugliuzza

Yesterday was the official canvass for the IP Hamburg Town Council race and I suffered through it with a lot of back pain. In the end the numbers were pretty consistent with the outcome specified by the BOE on Primary night. Although a dozen or two absentee ballots and affidavit ballots were sent out to residents who requested them only 2 were sent back in.

Aside from the fact that Dick and Vinny won the election their were several key issues brought to light of the problems the BOE has with running a fair and effective polling place. Some of those issues were handing out wrong affidavit ballots, sending people away from their proper polling place ( I believe intentionally) and refusing to open or count affidavit ballots for BS reasons that result in the voter losing his right to vote.

As I reported earlier at the the Frontier Community Learning Center the poll workers had no idea how to switch the machines from Democratic to Independence. Because of that several IP members signed in to vote but those votes were never registered on the machine. They apparently could only pull the Democratic levers. Later it was discovered that at least one IP member asked for a affidavit ballot and was given a Democratic affidavit ballot so his vote was null and void as well.

  Adam Schreckengost was sent away from his polling place because the worker couldn’t find his name in the book and wouldn’t give him an appropriate affidavit ballot. So Adam went to the polling place closest to his house and filled out the proper IP affidavit ballot. At the BOE on Friday the Assistant Commissioners running the re-canvass wouldn’t even open the ballot because Adam submitted it at the wrong polling place. This after being turned away at the proper polling place and then being refused the proper affidavit ballot there.

Their were a lot of affidavit ballots filed with the BOE and I think only one was actually counted. The rest were thrown out for one reason or another. In the end this shows me that the Democratic machine was watching to make sure that Lysle and I couldn’t win. This statement is not sour grapes it’s just the truth. As I sat waiting to be called in for the canvass Mary Rose Gaughan made the statement that she already had all the numbers from the election. She made it clear that the Democrats canvassed the machines for themselves and calculated the figures well before Fridays official meeting.

Even though they did this they still had some problems. They, of course, didn’t have my totals from the two remaining districts even though they had the Democrats totals. This  added to their lead and it makes the race look lop sided when it really wasn’t. the fact that the poll workers turned away about 10 of my people at the polls and frustrated more of my people by not manipulating the machines properly shows just how scared they really were. Mary Gaughan said she had people at every polling place looking for the numbers that night. That in itself is a sign of loss of control of the party.

The bottom line is simple. Dick and Vinny won but it took them two negative mailings and a team of long time loyal Democrats willing to switch to the IP a year in advance to do it. The Dems manged to switch into the IP enough people last year to turn this election. Now I must do the same. I expect that to happen before the October deadline so next year will be a critical IP committee race and with Orsini as good as out this party leadership is up for grabs. Let’s see how this plays out.