EASTON, Pa.- Northampton County Executive Tara Zrinski defended her administration’s handling of the May primary, days after a meeting in which some residents and members of the election commission spoke out about what they characterized as troubling deficiencies.
Zrinski, during her regular report during county council’s meeting Thursday night, said there were “very few and minor hiccups” that occurred on Election Day.
At the election commission meeting on Tuesday, eight residents- many of whom also worked or volunteered at the polls on May 19- delivered a strong rebuke, criticizing, among other things, the implementation of a redistricting plan that brought changes to some polling place locations.
“I want to emphasize that redistricting in a non-presidential cycle when turnout is expected to be low in a non-contentious primary are the optimal conditions to troubleshoot and work out any kind of kinks,” said Zrinski.
Other problems reported on Election Day included electronic poll books needing to be updated while voting was underway, after it was realized that an incorrect file had been uploaded initially. The error caused discrepancies in the lists the showed who voted with a mail-in ballot, and who was eligible to vote in-person.
“The elections were accurate,” Zrinski stressed. “No one voted twice. No votes were counted twice, even if cast, because of the safeguards placed to ensure that everyone only gets one vote.”
Although she downplayed the reported problems, Zrinski also said the complaints brought to the election commission will be addressed. “Our elections office is already focused on improvements for fall over the next few months,” she said.
They’ll be re-evaluating several of the new polling places, getting new electronic poll books up and running, and holding a post-election analysis with judges of election to assess what worked and what did not, Zrinski said.
Parking amid new garage construction
In other business, council approved an agreement with Shiloh Baptist Church of Easton to lease a parking during the construction of the new parking deck at the government center at 669 Washington Street.
Northampton County will pay the church $1,250 a month to use the lot at 403 Pastor Fred Davis Street for county vehicles, county employee vehicles and juror pool vehicles.
A shuttle will take employees and jurors to and from the government center.
The agreement specifies that any vehicles associated with county business must be removed from the lot by 5:30 p.m.
Construction on the new, three-story deck is slated to begin over the summer and last about 18 months.
Budget amendment
Council also voted yes on a $3.83 million budget amendment.
Amending the budget is standard procedure to rectify the county spending plan with funding that is received from the state; Pennsylvania’s fiscal calendar follows a different schedule than Northampton County’s.
The amendments were made across several departments, including parks and recreation and several subsets of human services, and “the majority of them are revenues,” said Interim Fiscal Director Brandon Dunstane. “If you look, the majority of them, the expenditure budgets for every single one is actually going up. A lot of it is the delay because of the state budget. A lot of that funding got moved into the current year.”
Zrinski also noted that the county has hired a new fiscal director. That person will be introduced at the end of the month.