Cardinal Spellman begins year with Mass of the Holy Spirit
Student Government Executive Committee with Spellman administrators: Maria Piri and Kyle O’Donnell (assistant principals), Cristina Rosado (Student
Government moderator) Yelenis Torres, Raven Garcia, Bianca Binns, Obiora Okeke (president), Rosaly Gutierrez (vice-president), Talia White,
Renee Kyereme, Shakinah Silverberg, Daniel O’Keefe (school president and principal), and Collin Smith (assistant principal).
Photo courtesy of Cardinal Spellman High School
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, O 30 CTOBER 4-10, 2019 BTR
Action
Association
To begin the 2019 – 2020
academic year, 1,300 students
from Cardinal Spellman
High School, accompanied
by the administration,
faculty, and staff, gathered
together in September for
the annual Mass of the Holy
Spirit, held at the start of
each new school year. The
principal celebrant this year
was Father Peter Pilsner, director
of Spiritual Activities,
who was joined by Father
James O’Shaughnessy, Father
John Kraljic, and Father
Luke Leighton C.F.R. assisting
at the Mass.
Immediately following the
Mass, the new Student Body
president Obiora Okeke and
vice-president Rosaly Gutierrez
were administered
the oath of offi ce by Daniel
O’Keefe, president and principal
of Cardinal Spellman.
Each spoke briefl y to the students,
encouraging them to
excel in academics and also
to join one of the many athletic
teams and school clubs
at Spellman.
Each year, the president
and vice president, together
with the Executive Committee
of Student Government,
will organize and coordinate
various school-wide events
and activities that are popular
with students, including
the annual Pep Rally, Spirit
Week, International Culture
Day, Give a Gift at Christmas
time for children in the
community, Candy Grams
for Valentine’s Day, Teacher
Appreciation Day, the junior
year boat ride, and school
dances.
BY FRANK VERNUCCIO
One of the most signifi cant
threats to the integrity of the
2020 election can be wholly
avoided.
In July, the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence
stressed that there was an
immediate need to secure
America’s voting systems. Its
key recommendations were
that states replace outdated
and vulnerable voting systems
with a voter-verifi ed paper
trail and use statistically
sound audits.
In August, the Brennan
Center reported that:
“The lifespan of electronic
voting machines can vary,
but experts agree that systems
over a decade old are
more likely to need to be replaced
for security and reliability
reasons. We estimate
that in November 2018, 34 percent
of all local election jurisdictions
were using voting
machines that were at least
10 years old as their primary
polling place equipment (or
as their primary tabulation
equipment in all vote-by-mail
jurisdictions). This number
includes counties and towns
in 41 states…11 states use paperless
machines as their
primary polling place equipment
in at least some counties
and towns… As both the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence
and National Academy
of Sciences have noted,
we should replace antiquated
equipment, and paperless
equipment in particular, as
soon as possible.”
There is a salient question.
American democracy did
quite well before the advent of
electronic voting machines.
Why was there a sudden rush
to ‘fi x’ a system that wasn’t
broken, indeed, was actually
the envy of every free nation
on Earth?
Steve Levy, writing for
Fox News, offers one explanation
why states rushed to
electronic voting. “A cottage
industry of electronic voting
machine manufacturers
swooped in on every state
capitol, with ample campaign
contributions in tow. Before
you knew it, it wasn’t a question
of whether states would
purchase these machines, but
which bells-and-whistles version
they would choose… Why
would we jeopardize the integrity
of our electoral process
for no valid reason? Electronic
machines were not enough for
the tech set. Online voting
would revolutionize the franchise,
they said. Amazingly,
32 states to this day permit
some form of online balloting,
despite warnings the systems
are not secure. An analysis
by Silicon Valley executives
warned that “potential criminal
electronic attacks on computer
software, such as destructive
‘viruses’ or ‘Trojan
Horse’ software, create a serious
threat to Internet voting.”
In 2004, the Pentagon canceled
a proposed Internet voting
program for overseas military
personnel due concerns about
hacking. And in 2010, a University
of Michigan professor
answered a challenge made
by the Board of Elections in
Washington, D.C., which was
testing a new Internet voting
device in a mock election. The
professor hacked it within 36
hours.”
In a study, Election Defense.
org explained that “The
use of computers prevents
observation and makes elections
vulnerable to fraud in
new and profound ways compared
to older technologies…
When technicians handle systems
for non-technical staff,
this opens the door to fraud…
Eelectronic vote systems are
easily corrupted.
“Computerized elections
are a political problem. The
Resolution on Electronic Voting,
endorsed by thousands of
computer technologists, says
‘Computerized voting equipment
is inherently subject to
programming error, equipment
malfunction, and malicious
tampering.’ Every study
of electronic voting has said
that systems from the major
vendors are insecure and of
poor quality.
“In spite of all this, few
government offi cials with responsibility
for elections are
heeding the constant stream
of warnings about electronic
voting, and the expressed
distrust of voters. The major
media and many offi cials
are still urging us to convert
to electronic voting. In 2004
Americans witnessed an overwhelming
incidence of dirty
tricks and failures of our election
infrastructure, and the
use of unverifi able and unverifi
ed computers is part of this
failure.”
A Stanford University examination
of the problem provides
information that concurs
with Election Defense.
“Opponents of electronic
voting do not feel that the voting
basics can be maintained
in an electronic voting system.
The arguments have been divided
into 3 general categories
of complaints: issues with the
technology, vast possibilities
of fraud, and protection of voters
and their votes.
“As Bruce Schneier describes
it, technology adds
more steps to the process and
thus increases the possibility
of error with each additional
step, all of which are
largely unseen by the voter.
Put Murphy’s Law of ‘whatever
can go wrong, will go
wrong’ into play, and one can
surmise that technology will
most likely falter. Not only
does the technology create
more errors in the electronic
workings, but the voters can
also commit mistakes due
to confusion with the user
interface. The terminology
is confusing, different machines
produce different interfaces,
and even the audio
guides to help the disabled
may prove more confusing
than helpful. With the advent
of electronic machine voting
also comes the higher possibilities
of fraudulent machines
and practices.”
Election Defense Suggests
returning to lever machines
with paper backups, paper
ballots and precinct-count optical
scanners.