Tom Casey reports in today's Register-Star that Hudson Democrats have requested that Republicans "meet in court tomorrow to discuss ground rules" for counting absentee ballots and recanvassing votes: "Hudson Dems serve papers on GOP."
The action is not sitting well with Republican mayoral candidate Bill Hallenbeck, who is quoted in the article as saying, "Trying to have lawyers and judges decide this race, not the people who voted, it’s a real act of desperation as far as I’m concerned. I’m real dissatisfied with what is going on here with these absentee ballots.” Unless Gossips has missed something--which is entirely possible--nothing is "going on here with these absentee ballots" except that the Democrats thwarted in court the Republicans' attempt to have the ballots turned over to the care and keeping of the Columbia County Sheriff's Department, which endorsed Hallenbeck.
You hit it on the head, Carole. When his party -- which he neither controls or apparently tries to control -- brings specious applications before the court it's an insult to the people of the Board of Elections (even though it was we who argued against finding the BoE and its staff incapable of providing the security mandated by the NYS Election Law. When we attempt to set ground rules to permit the count to proceed in an orderly, deliberate manner it's an attempt at an end-run around the voters. The inability or unwillingness of this nascent administration to grasp the basics of the legal system are astounding. Even more so than the poor grammar.
ReplyDeleteHallenbeck should read the Democrats' papers, which I gather were served on him yesterday. The request is simply to set up simple ground rules *before* ballots start being counted, rather than making them up in the middle of things. That would benefit everyone involved. Since when did the GOP stand for chaos?
ReplyDeleteI also don't hear Hallenbeck complaining about the State GOP, which has been in court to go after absentee ballots in a 7-county area, including Columbia. Has he asked his fellow party members to back off? Doubt it.
--S.
Read? Read?! "If it's not on ESPN, I haven't read it." The height of arrogant ignorance per Mr. Hallenbeck's own words.
ReplyDelete"Arrogant ignorance" is the new political campaign in Hudson and in Washington DC.
ReplyDeleteHow did we ever get to deserve this as a reality ?
Real leadership is a thing of the past.
A lot of people are thinking the same thing Vincent. I know it's a real big theme for the poster known as "Prison Alley." Lots of people with precarious moral bearings seek positions of power, but it's really not that new.
ReplyDeleteI just looked up the word "integrity," wondering if I could put my finger on precisely what's missing in those examples:
"Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs" (from Wikipedia).
Yes, but who is it that "suggests" that parties account for their discrepancies? I certainly haven't seen enough people around here suggesting greater integrity from our representatives.
To be fair, it's very time-consuming cross-referencing every funky quotation and each little hypocrisy. But not paying attention only encourages them.
It would be pretty useful if we had a website that just chronicled the self-contradictory and shifting positions of Hudson's representatives and officials.
For instance, I think I am the only one who knows that my own alderwoman mutated from being vehemently opposed to the South Bay zoning proposal in July 2010 to hardily endorsing the Final GEIS based entirely on the same zoning! No explanation was offered.
Other officials such as the Council President, or the GEIS legal advisor, people who could never be confused with the definition of integrity above, have left a handy trail of inconsistencies and mutations.
Once I compiled a ludicrously shifting litany of claims made by the Mayor about L&B, all from the pages of the Register Star, but I never knew what to do with it. The things that the Mayor gets away with saying are actually humorous, in a perverse way (in the same way that Mayor Quimby is so funny).