Berkley Crime Report

Berkley Elected Assessor and Election Poll worker Lisa Tetrault jumped onto social media this weekend and began circling the wagons around embattled Town Clerk Heather Almy in a sad attempt to spin and defend what may be the largest election miscount in Massachusetts history.

Taking this completely tone deaf approach even further, Ms. Tetrault actually went so far as to blame the voters because the poll workers are either not properly trained or are not professionally capable of properly handling write in ballots. Did she have track shoes on when she decided to run away from responsibility?

“How about shifting some of the blame on the voters…”

Can you believe that attitude? Blame the voters. Or in other words, blame the hard working taxpayers who pay their real estate taxes on time and expect that people doing a job should actually have to get it right. The nerve of those voters to not understand it’s their fault.

When the Town of Berkley is unable to trick voters into believing that there is integrity in Berkley’s elections after only small incremental changes are made to the process, with an incompetent Town Clerk who refuses to take responsibility and resign for the most embarrassing election result in Massachusetts history, is Ms. Tetrault going to blame them for that too?

Town Clerk Heather Almy has broken the public trust. If she won’t do the right thing and resign then she should be recalled. Berkley cannot afford 3 more years of election disasters like May 9th. How can we ever expect honest and accurate elections in Berkley with the same Town Clerk and poll workers in charge who have brought shame and ridicule to the residents??

The Board of Selectmen needs to request outside poll workers from the Secretary of State’s office be brought in to secure election integrity in Berkley and look at a full termination of the existing staff with recruiting of new poll workers and a substantial investment in training before we can even think about trusting Berkley again.

There were other issues with election integrity failings by poll workers that haven’t even been addressed yet because of what a fiasco the recount is. Will they, as the Town Clerk and Board of Selectmen fight to spin this as a “training issue”? Don’t let them try to force these people, who have harmed Democracy, down your throats and back into the polling place.