> Lest we forget: Remembrance Day across West Niagara / Pgs. 8-10 > GBF kicks off Christmas Hamper program Pg. 3> Curl for Kids’ Sake Nov. 8 Pg. 4 > Health Expo a success, more to come Pg. 15 Thursday, November 6, 2014 Vol. 3 Issue 27
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Grimsby election night issues linger By Mike Williscraft NewsNow Incorrect certified results and human error were two of the main issues which continue to cause Town of Grimsby officials grief post-Oct. 27 election night problems. In a lengthy series of emails among Grimsby resident Rob Hattin, former mayoral candidate Wayne Fertich, town manager Keith Vogl and NewsNow, concerns about an election
night process gone awry linger. The general public and candidates alike were left scratching their respective heads on election night at the Peach King Centre as results were not released until about 10:30 p.m., hours after most municipalities had released their results. The problem, says Brian O’Connor, president of the company contracted to provide support for the Town’s online voting process, “Scytl
(O’Connor’s company) detected that election result files had been mislabelled due to human error. The election results were accurate but the files had the wrong municipalities’ name associated with them. Rather than just rename the files, Scytl reran the entire process with the Electoral Board as is our protocol when any type of inconsistency is detected,” noted O’Connor in a letter to its customers, adding this caused the delay.
For Hattin, this raised several issues, namely, he believes the rerunning of files constituted a recount and should have opened the process up to a whole other level of scrutiny and process. In a note to Vogl, Hattin stated, “They (Scytl) admitted an error, and they were the only ones who oversaw the correction. When there is an error there is compromise. From my See ERROR, Page 2
Up Front Come learn about the GBF The Grimsby Benevolent Fund Volunteer Open House is set for this Sunday. Want to get involved? From noon to 2 p.m. at GBF – 40 Elm Street in Grimsby – interested residents can come and meet the people who make the place run. This open house gives everyone an opportunity to come into the store, take a look around and chat to the volunteers in the area in which they would be interested.
Ready to welcome Santa A barbecue fundraiser was held at Smithville Foodland on Saturday for the West Lincoln Santa Claus parade with Christmas in the Village committee members, store employees and firefighters helping out. (L to R) Ray Attwood and Foodland owner Mike MacQueen man the barbecue, committee member
Dave Willis, firefighters Andy Hardy, Jason Janzen, Jim Hiscott, and committee member Doug Dawson. The parade is set for Saturday, Nov. 29 at 2 p.m. Following the parade there will be “art-on-Ice” for the children at the Smithville Arena at 4 p.m., followed by free skating at 6 p.m.