October Meeting
We had a very interesting meeting and timely speakers for our first meeting of the 2024-2025 season.
Vice President, Marty Peck, began the meeting about 6:30PM with the introduction of the guests and our speakers. We discussed old business including the reading of thank you letters by Andy Matthews from our student honorees from last season: Sofie Kachmaryk and Justin Spellman. The letters were very gracious and well received.
We also had a discussion of new business including: Dinner price now at $30 (previously $25). We also now have a dedicated waitress. Sam Samanta received a 2024 Finger Lakes Community College – Exceptional Service Award. Congratulations Sam!
Club business concluded with a remembrance of the three members we lost last year: Jack Clarq, Marty Neenan and Jack Herrington.
Following an excellent dinner, we were honored to have two speakers, Michael Northrup, the Ontario County Republican Commissioner of Elections and Albert Magnan, the Ontario County Democratic Commissioner of Elections who provided us with a lively non-partisan discussion about how elections in New York and particularly in Ontario County are run and the safeguards that are used to protect the vote. Our presenters also talked about the mechanics of elections. The discussions were not political but were about all the steps required before and after the election to safeguard the accuracy of the vote.
The discussion items included:
Ontario County has approximately 84,000 registered voters. There has been some effort nationally to sow doubt in the election process. Non-citizens cannot register to vote in national elections. Ontario County closely follows election law, a prescriptive document of over 800 pages. All voting machine information is certified by both Republican and Democrat technicians. Audits are performed after each election. Each and every ballet is reconciled including mail-in and absentee ballots. Voting machines are not connected to the internet, each machine just counts the ballots and tallies the results. The election laws are designed to allow the vote to be: fair, accurate, transparent, accessible (and be private) and without duress to the voter.
The discussion was well received by all in attendance. Thank you Michael and Albert!