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Poll-cat problem: Man smashes machine with feline paperweight

Wednesday, November 08, 2006
By KURT BRESSWEIN
The Express-Times

ALLENTOWN | A 43-year-old city man walked into his polling place
Tuesday, signed his name and proceeded to smash a new electronic
voting machine with a cat-shaped paperweight, police said.

Michael Young of the 300 block of Auburn Street then asked to sit down
to await police, according to poll workers stationed at the Good
Shepherd Home, Sixth and St. John streets.

Joe Holler, judge of elections for the 12th Ward First District,
removed the machine's memory card to turn over to the Lehigh County
Board of Elections. No votes were believed lost, Holler and police
said. The machine cost $5,000, police said.

Young's voting visit began uneventfully about 10:30 a.m., the poll
workers said.

"Next thing we know he's got the cat in his hand and he's smashing the
machine and grunting as loud as he could," Holler said.

Poll workers Joe Govostis and Pete Noga got up to grab Young, who
handed over the cat.

"When he first turned with the cat, I thought he was going to hit me,"
Govostis said.

Shirley Rossetti, a clerk for the ward, was also unsure what to expect
next from Young.

"You always think about what could have been," she said, "and it's
kind of frightening.

"That takes power to break through that," Rossetti said of the
voting-machine screen.

Police planned to arraign Young Tuesday night on criminal mischief and
tampering with voting machines charges.

"It was a pretty heavy paperweight," Assistant Police Chief Ronald
Manescu said. "He smashed the dickens out of the machine and made it
unusable."

Mike Horton, the state constable for the voting ward, spent Election
Day into the early evening at the Good Shepherd Home instead of
circulating around his other wards. This was a far cry from his usual
duty of moving campaigners away from polling place doors, he said.

More than 130 people had voted there by the time of the incident. It
forced voters to use one machine for about four hours until the county
brought a second machine, Holler said.

"None of the votes have been lost," he said. "All the votes will be
counted."