I did learn from a conversation with the District Clerk this afternoon that the service handling the mailing of the ballots had run out of envelopes, and another printer in Albany had taken over the task. Ballots are now expected to be in the mail tomorrow. Some people in the district have already received their ballots, but for the rest of us, getting them in time to return them by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9, may be hard. For that reason, the plan is to set up two ballot boxes--one at the former John L. Edwards School, the other at Hudson High School--so people can deliver their ballots themselves rather than relying on the post office to get them there in time.
The latest information about voting the HCSD election can be found here.
What a disaster. But then the school district potentates thrive on low turnout elections where the only information that generally gets out is their own one sided spin. If I ran this state, one of my first acts would be to cause legislation to be passed that folded school district elections into the general election cycle and have them managed by the Board of Elections, not this kind of gang of incompetents, incompetent quite possible by design - as Shakespeare put it, methinks there might be a method to their madness.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that is my fantasy for today. Thanks for listening.
We sent our application in today
ReplyDelete(by mail). I'll let you know what we get and when we get it.
We've worked to get absentee ballots in NYS to make it easier and safer for everyone to vote.
ReplyDelete1. The HCSD hires a firm to mail out ballots without knowing the number of registered voters in the HCSD? That information's been around how long - since the last election?
They JUST are finding out they don't have enough envelopes???
2. This contact-less voting process, is not so contact-less, if you don't get your ballot in time.
If you can't ensure that your vote gets in, in time, you need to bring it to a box to deliver in a building. Which is good for voters who: don't have underlying health conditions, having family who have underlying health conditions, can't drive or get to one of the two buildings to drop it off.
The pandemic didn't happen yesterday folks - this is poor planning. (It's exhausting to continue to use the pandemic as an excuse for lack of strategy).
I shudder at what our election process looks like in Columbia County, if this is any indicator.
I support access to voting for all, as a basic right and making it easy for everyone to exercise their right to vote. I support mail in ballots, as other states have done. I support every voice to be heard.
This doesn't feel like it, at all.
after further clarification - I would like to add a few comments.
DeleteI realize I am sure, as we had a run on PPE and everything else, there were runs on the materials needed to get ready for the elections.
And I have since found out the two boxes already identified are not in a building, but in front of a building outside. And that there are more locations that are going to be added and will be listed at the school's website, below. Currently it states, "additional locations will be added once confirmed"
https://www.hudsoncsd.org/june-2020-voting-info/?fbclid=IwAR3pP5AIuFbBkasELhy1Ahb8PfGSW_TycZHCsYcwnUWReB7fdZrMiwOZeSI
Virginia Martin submitted this comment:
ReplyDeleteI spoke to District Clerk Leslie Coons today. I know her to be very competent and very diligent. I am quite certain that the problems in this school election are not due to her or to anyone in the district. The problems relate to the changes they are mandated to follow, and in a year like this, those changes are not so easy to comply with. That doesn't mean HCSD is doing a bad job.
HCSD did not miscount the number of voters or the number of envelopes needed. That job was farmed out, appropriately, to a very reputable and competent vendor, and I cannot imagine what the genesis of the error was. Perhaps it's a matter of everyone in the state suddenly needing to turn on a dime to follow a whole different set of procedures, with probably insufficient guidance from the state.
It's not the district's fault. How can they be expected to organize such an effort when you can't see beyond your well manicured finger nails?
ReplyDelete