Post-Election Audits

FAQ: Why Bother Auditing Referendums & Questions?

By Luther Weeks on July 10, 2008

The Connecticut post-election audit exempts, among other things, all referendums and questions. This is a mistake. Referendums and questions may be the most vulnerable election items open to human attack via programming – often all the elected officials of both parties want the referendums passed – they may go through multiple, failed, low turn-out, budget […]

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Panel In Fairfield – What Do You Want?

By Luther Weeks on July 8, 2008

Last night I was on a panel in Fairfield with Deputy Secretary of the State Lesley Mara, Dr. Alex Shvartsman from the UConn VoTeR Center, and Michael Kozik of the Secretary of the State’s Office. The event was video taped by the sponsors. If possible I will make the video availabe here. For now, here […]

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CT Irony #2: The Closest Races Will Never Be Audited

By Luther Weeks on June 19, 2008

Nor will they ever be hand-counted. Nor will contested races. Connecticut’s “strongest in the country” post-election audit law exempts races that are recounted or races that are contested from post-election audits. The law does not require that recounts be manual hand-to-eye counts and the Secretary of the State after some hesitation has lifted her requirement […]

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Broken System: Bridgeport Primary Does Not Add Up

By Luther Weeks on June 15, 2008

Summary: This article and the Bridgeport Primary expose the problems with a “system” that ignores and excuses discrepancies that are discovered. As we have often pointed out in post-election audit reports, ignoring and excusing away discrepancies means that if there is ever an error or a fraud it will not be recognized. In this case […]

Posted in Chain of Custody, CT, CT Skulduggery and Errors, National, Post-Election Audits | 3 Responses

CT Irony #1: The Hand-Count Irony

By Luther Weeks on June 13, 2008

In our most recent Presidential Primary there were many towns in Connecticut that ran out of optical scan ballots and a huge percentage (30-40% ?) of the vote in those towns was then un-scannable hand counted copied ballots. These were counted late at night by unprepared election officials after a fifteen hour day. Ironically the […]

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Senators Feinstein and Bennett Plan To Unite Voting Integrity Advocates

By Luther Weeks on May 25, 2008

Another effort in a long history of knee-jerk reactions to address public concern with voting by throwing expensive, inadequate, unproven, and unnecessary technology at the problem. The better solution is a stronger “Holt” bill banning DRE’s, mandating paper ballots, and strong, effective audits. Senators Feinstein and Bennett issued a press release purporting to enhance voting […]

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Revised November Audit Report – Suffers From Legendary Computing Problem

By Luther Weeks on May 23, 2008

Earlier this week Dr. Alex Shvartsman of UConn sent us a revised, Version 2, of the Statistical Analysis of the Post Election Audit Data, November 2007 Elections <read> This report is based on the added investigations of the discrepancies reported in the initial audit data reported in the Observation Coalition Report <read> followed by the […]

Posted in CT, Post-Election Audits, Reports | 1 Response

Warning: This Elecition Will Not Be Audited

By Luther Weeks on May 21, 2008

The following report about a recent election in Plainfield raises several issues: The Help America Vote Act does not require electronic voting. All paper balloting for federal elections is OK. But according to this article not in Connecticut. In general we have no problems with all paper ballot elections, although there is attraction to the […]

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Science Says We Have A Problem. Can The System Answer?

By Luther Weeks on May 8, 2008

Is requiring that a vote be overturned in cases where the evidence shows over a 95% chance that the election system failed the voters and democracy a radical solution? When should there be a re-vote? Or simply overturn an election? Two important articles in the spring issue of CHANCE, from the American Statistical Association present […]

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Tell Your Rep You Want Voter Integrity, Not Just Privacy!

By Luther Weeks on May 6, 2008

Bysiewicz Urges Passage of S.B. 444 – We Urge Amendment #6141 Many of the changes necessary to start Connecticut on the road to stronger, effective audits that were in H.B. 5888 have now been offered as an amendment #6141 by Reps Caruso and Urban to S.B.444: An Independent Audit Board A Stronger Chain-of-Custody for Memory […]

Posted in Chain of Custody, CT Law, National, Post-Election Audits | 1 Response