Attorney Charles A. Pascal, Jr., has filed a Motion For Reconsideration on behalf of members of the specially appointed Venango County Election Board. The filing was made this afternoon in response to President Judge Oliver J. Lobaugh’s order dismissing the Board yesterday. Citing ongoing investigations into serious voting machine problems reported during the May 17 primary election, the specially appointed Election Board requested that they be allowed to continue their work until 11:59 PM on December 31, 2011.
“The members of the specially appointed Board of Elections believes that it is necessary to continue their work in order to assure the voters of the County of Venango of the integrity of the election process in the county,” the Motion states, “and to assure that any possible violations of policy, protocol, best practices, or the law, or any directive of the Pennsylvania Secretary of State, are not repeated in future elections.”
Appointed by Judge Lobaugh in early Spring to run elections during the year when County Commissioners were candidates for reelection, the Election Board heard sworn testimony from Venango County voters who observed votes flipping from one candidate to another on the touchscreen voting machines, and candidates missing from the ballot. Additionally, several races were subject to high rates of undervotes.
In response to the reported problems, the specially appointed Election Board ordered a forensic examination of Venango County’s ES&S iVotronic electronic voting system, the first of its kind ever conducted in any of the fifty Pennsylvania counties still using paperless, unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines. The forensic audit was being done for free by two concerned Carnegie-Mellon Computer Science professors.
The experts’ examination and board’s investigations were nearing completion when Judge Lobaugh issued an order of court yesterday, dismissing the specially appointed Election Board.
The documents, which are public filings, are available below.