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Former Northwood candidate wants to see voting logs, threatens court action

THUNDER BAY – A former city council candidate may head to the courts, a move he says is the only way to ensure the voting tabulators used for the 2014 municipal election haven’t been tampered with.
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Former Northwood candidate Frank Armiento speaks with Coun. Frank Pullia at city hall Thursday. (Jodi Lundmark, tbnewswatch.com)

THUNDER BAY – A former city council candidate may head to the courts, a move he says is the only way to ensure the voting tabulators used for the 2014 municipal election haven’t been tampered with.

The city ran a public post-election test of its automated vote tabulators Thursday (audio below) at city hall and 2014 election coordinator Marcy Vallelunga ran the test in the same manner it was done in the pre-election test in council chambers on Oct. 10, 2014.

“We have to wait for the 120-day lapse as legislated for the results so we can clear the memory cards and use the same memory cards we had used in the pre-test,” she said.

They used the same tabulator and the results were consistent with the pre-test, she added.

But that wasn’t enough for former Northwood candidate Frank Armiento, the only member of the public to attend the test. He asked to see the tabulator’s audit logs, which he believes is the public’s right to see.

“(It) would prove the vote was valid and nobody compromised the machines. I’m not saying anybody has, but just to ensure, to prove the integrity of the vote, I wanted to see the log,” he said.

However, releasing those logs would reveal who citizens voted for, as Vallelunga said the logs are digital photocopies of voters’ ballots. Those ballots cannot be handed out. 

At-large Coun. Frank Pullia also attended the test and told Armiento all municipal candidates had been informed prior to the election they were allowed to send scrutineers to election stations to ensure no one tampered with the tabulators.

Armiento said he didn’t have the manpower to do that.

He also said he will be talking to lawyers to see if he has a case worth pursuing through the courts to see the audit logs.

 

Below is audio from a discusion about the voting tabultors. The voices are of former Northwood candidate Frank Armiento,  2014 election coordinator Marcy Vallelunga and Coun. Frank Pullia. The audio may be difficult to hear clearly. 


 

 

 





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