Year: 2008

CT: Unfortunately, we were correct.

Last week, we said “There are likely many other differences that have not been discovered.”

Last week, we said: “There are likely many other differences that have not been discovered.”

Unfortunately, we were correct.  We checked our own town of Glastonbury web’s reported results against the Secretary of the State’s results:

Totals for ROV in Glastonbury, on Glastonbury site:  9,018   8,501 <read>
Totals for ROV in Glastonbury, on SOTS site:           9,001   8,491 <read>

Checking with Zelda Lessne, Registrar of Voters-D, this is the difference between the originally reported results and those one the web listed as amended on November 17th.

Once again, this may not matter in the result in this eleciton, but it seems there are many errors out there that could change future results.  Its good that towns recheck their work after a good night’s sleep, but those results also should be reflected in the State’s posted results.

CT: More Errors In Reported Results?

We have covered reports of differences between the results posted on the Secretary of the State’s web site and actual election results in Shelton and Stamford. We have learned of a third problem in the results posted for the Congressional race in Avon, with the possibility of similar problems in several other towns. David Bedell … Continue reading “CT: More Errors In Reported Results?”

We have covered reports of differences between the results posted on the Secretary of the State’s web site and actual election results in Shelton and Stamford. We have learned of a third problem in the results posted for the Congressional race in Avon, with the possibility of similar problems in several other towns.

David Bedell (Green Party candidate for Registrar, Stamford) was researching the effect the Working Families Party may have had in the recent election. He noticed several anomalies: 9 towns with instances of zero counts for WFP and one with duplicate results for the Democratic and WFP for a candidate.

He checked with the Avon Registrar and she reported U.S. Representative Chris Murphy’s results were Democratic-5111 and WFP-269, making a total of 5380.

Checking this morning at the Secretary of the State’s web site we see totals of Democratic-5577 and WKF of 0, an extra 197 votes. By our calculations that amounts to about 1.9% of the initially reported results for the race in Avon.

As we have pointed out before, the manual calculation of votes, usually with three transcriptions and several additions along the way is an error prone process. It can be a daunting task for voters, candidates, and parties to check results independently, since the State publishes summary results which must be verified against multiple hand written reports and machine tapes held in each town hall. There are likely many other differences that have not been discovered.

Perhaps no errors, discovered or not, in the November election would change the winner in any contest, however, it could matter in future, closer elections and it does matter in the next election how votes are allocated to parties in this election.

A Winner In Minnesota

OpEd by Mark Halversen, Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota, testifies to the integrity of the Minnesota recount <read> A recount to count on As nonpartisan election integrity advocates with front-row seats at the U.S. Senate recount, we believe Minnesotans can be confident the process has been methodical and fair. The intense scrutiny given to each … Continue reading “A Winner In Minnesota”

OpEd by Mark Halversen, Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota, testifies to the integrity of the Minnesota recount <read>

A recount to count on

As nonpartisan election integrity advocates with front-row seats at the U.S. Senate recount, we believe Minnesotans can be confident the process has been methodical and fair. The intense scrutiny given to each step of the process and to each vote in the Senate recount has provided an incredible civics lesson for Minnesotans and the nation.

Hundreds of Minnesotans have volunteered as nonpartisan observers in at least one of four statewide manual counts — the 2006 and 2008 post-election audits, the 2008 judicial primary recount and, now, the U.S. Senate recount. These efforts were organized by Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota in partnership with the League of Women Voters Minnesota and Common Cause Minnesota.

The winner is: Voting Integrity

Our current election laws effectively prevented the chaos that could have clouded the process.

Minnesota’s election process is characterized by transparency and openness. The most recent example is the live online streaming of the canvassing board’s review of the challenged ballots.

As we discussed recently, unlike Connecticut, Minnesota has the right idea, a complete, thorough, manual recount

A manual recount is the best way to be confident in the accuracy of the results in such a close race.

A meaningful recount is possible because the paper ballots provide a physical record of each voter’s intent and enable a way to independently verify the machine tally.

Although some have argued that a machine recount would have been cheaper and quicker than a hand count, it would not have been as accurate in determining voter intent.

Vote totals typically rise whenever there is a hand recount of a machine tally, as we’ve seen in this recount. This is because some voters mis-mark their ballots — for example, by circling an oval instead of filling it in — in such a way that optical scanners cannot detect their intent.

Just counting the paper is not enough. Counting the paper by hand is not enough. Minnesota could have done it much sooner if they just counted the paper by hand, but they do the whole job. Democracy can stand the wait, its speed that puts it in danger.
(See our recent post: Minnesota Recount vs. Connecticut Recanvass )

FAQ: When Do We Worry About Money?

We have recently noticed a natural human tendency: When we are in favor of something, we ignore the costs, no matter how great. When we are against something, we highlight the costs, no matter how small. This is clearly illustrated by two Hartford Courant editorials, one day apart. Monday Dec 22nd: Rell Sharpens The Knife … Continue reading “FAQ: When Do We Worry About Money?”

We have recently noticed a natural human tendency: When we are in favor of something, we ignore the costs, no matter how great. When we are against something, we highlight the costs, no matter how small.

This is clearly illustrated by two Hartford Courant editorials, one day apart.

Monday Dec 22nd: Rell Sharpens The Knife <read>

Last week, Gov. M. Jodi Rell proposed her second “deficit mitigation plan” designed to erase the remaining $356 million gap between revenue and expenses in this fiscal year’s state budget. Again, as the first time, she gets rid of the shortfall without layoffs, new taxes or raiding the rainy day fund, a cash reserve account with $1.4 billion in it…

But at $10,000-plus a day, a special session is an expense the state can do without.

Here we are talking millions and billions in decisions. The Courant on this same day ran a front page story of the financial difficulties facing towns such as Simsbury. But the Courant’s problem is $10,000 a day to have our Legislature work on this problem. If we ran government like a business then we would gladly spend $10,000 a day to deal with million and billion dollar issues…that seems to be exactly what the Governor is proposing. Then again we could run Government like a newspaper…

(Note: We really don’t know if having a special session is a good idea or not. However, $10,000 a day for a few days work on the part of the Legislature is negligible if such a session would help deal better with the economic situation)

Sunday Dec 21st: Let Voters Decide <read>

In Connecticut as in many other states, the governor has the sole power to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy until the next scheduled election. Two Democratic officials — Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and state Rep. James Spallone — want to change the law to require vacancies to be filled by special election.

They’re right. It makes more sense to let voters decide who replaces a senator unable to finish his or her term than that constituency of one, the governor…

Changing the law to provide for a special election in the event of a midterm Senate vacancy makes the most sense.

Nary a word in the article about costs, just benefits. What is the difference between a Special Session that costs $10,000 a day for a couple of days vs. a Special Election that costs several million? We can think of several:

  • $10,000 a day is reasonable for dealing with multi-million dollar issues.
    Millions for a Special Election is reasonable for dealing with multi-billion dollar issues.
  • The costs and benefits of the Special Session will be born by all State Taxpayers.
  • The cost of the Special Election will primarily fall on Towns.
  • The direct financial beneficiaries of the Special Election would be the media. Considering campaign expenditures, we can expect those benefits could run in the neighborhood of $10,000,000 to $20,000,000.

(Note: We favor Special Elections for Senate vacancies. However, in considering all proposals we should consider all the costs and benefits. Considering the billion dollar decisions Senators its worth it to let the people decide).

Once again, its a natural human tendency:

  • When we are in favor of something, we ignore the costs, no matter how great.
  • When we are against something, we highlight the costs, no matter how small.

Update:  According to the Republican-American the estimate for a Special Election: <read>

Additionally, GOP lawmakers argued that a special election would be costly to towns and cities. The legislature’s budget office estimated a statewide election to fill a vacancy would cost $6 million.

Update: Towns bemoan cost of special Senate election <read>

Now that Massachusetts is about the exercise the law, Town Clerks are concerned.  We wonder if those same untimely concerns will surface in Connecticut the 1st time we need to exercise our new law?

The election to determine Sen. Edward Kennedy’s successor will cost cities and towns more than $5 million, and town clerks aren’t thrilled.

The upcoming special primary and election will cost individual communities thousands, an expense they hadn’t planned for.

Framingham, for instance, will spend more than $55,000 on the election and primary, with the state expected to reimburse the town about $13,000, or $6,500 for each event.

The Massachusetts Town Clerks Association has sent a letter to the secretary of state to expedite printing of absentee ballots, and there’s been discussion about having the state pay for the whole election.

Once again, we are in favor of the law and believe a Senate seat is worth a vote of the people and worth the small additional insurance of a post-election audit.

Update from MA:  Auditor: Costs for special Senate election are an unfunded mandate <read>

“The state law requiring this special election imposes a significant cost on cities and towns at a time when they can least afford it,” DeNucci said in a statement. “I request that my legal determination lead to full state funding of these costs.”

A 1980 state law requires that state laws imposing new costs on local governments must either be fully funded by the state, or subject to voluntary local acceptance. Local officials, struggling with local aid cuts and an erosion of revenues tied to the recession, are wondering how they will pay costs tied to the Dec. 8 primary and the Jan. 19 special election to fill the seat held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

DeNucci says the $7.2 million estimate covers the cost of wages for election day workers and law enforcement personnel, with costs rising higher when other expenses are factored in, such as the costs of certifying nomination papers, setting up and breaking down polling places, printing voting lists, programming voting equipment and rental and interpreter expenses.

CT: Bysiewicz, Slossberg, Spallone Call For Special Senate Elections

From the StamfordPlus <read>

Bysiewicz and legislative leaders call for special election to fill future U.S. Senate vacancies in Connecticut
By Secretary of the State
Dec 17, 2008 – 3:36 PM

Secretary of the State Points to Senate Vacancies in Illinois, New York as Evidence of the Need for Long Overdue Election Reform

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz today joined the incoming House Chair of the Government, Administration and Elections Committee, State Representative James Spallone (D-Essex) in calling for the adoption of a law designating a special election to fill any future vacancies in Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seats. In the case of a Senate vacancy, current law provides for the governor to appoint a successor to fill out the remainder of a term or until a special election can be called on the date of the next even-numbered general election…

Working together with GAE committee co-chairs, Senator Gayle Slossberg (D-Milford) and Representative James Spallone(D-Essex), Secretary Bysiewicz is vowing to bring a similar Senate vacancy bill before the Connecticut General Assembly in the 2009 legislative session.

What does this have to do with Voting Integrity and CTVotersCount?

Continue reading “CT: Bysiewicz, Slossberg, Spallone Call For Special Senate Elections”

The Perils Of No Excuse Absentee Voting

Vote Absentee: Your Vote May Not Count Today we learn of the problems in Minnesota with absentee voting in a Minneapolis Star Tribune Editorial <read> A nasty bug emerges in the state election system Absentee ballots emerged as the biggest flaw in Minnesota’s election system and may hold the key to finally resolving the Senate … Continue reading “The Perils Of No Excuse Absentee Voting”

Vote Absentee: Your Vote May Not Count

Today we learn of the problems in Minnesota with absentee voting in a Minneapolis Star Tribune Editorial <read>

A nasty bug emerges in the state election system

Absentee ballots emerged as the biggest flaw in Minnesota’s election system and may hold the key to finally resolving the Senate contest…

But here and nationwide, the rejection of absentee ballots — either because voters improperly filled out documents or because election officials erroneously spiked them — is a problem that’s long been hiding in plain sight.

“For years, people know some part of the [elections] system isn’t working, but it flies under the radar screen because it doesn’t cause problems until you have a situation like Florida in 2000 or Minnesota now,” said Edward Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University’s law school. “Suddenly, it becomes a huge problem. Rejected absentee ballots are the new hanging chad.”

“Boy, is that true,” said Minnesota Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann, who has estimated that more than 13 percent of rejected absentee ballots in the Senate race — possibly as many as 1,580 — were improperly set aside.


Yet, the problem with absentee ballots is much worse than the rejected 13%:

What about the 87% of absentee ballots rejected for legitimate reasons? Most of them represent the votes of legally registered voters that made a simple mistake. Unknown to most of them, their votes did not count and never will. There are other problems with all mail-in ballots, including absentee ballots, see: No Vote By Mail Project

We will hear continuing calls in Connecticut for the Legislature to enact early voting in one of several forms: Early voting in polling places, mail-in voting, and no excuse absentee voting. For a variety of different reasons we conditionally oppose each of these. “No excuse absentee voting” is another name for mail-in voting.

Also, ECM Editorial on issues with absentee voting in Minnesota <read>

Another Audit – Another Diebold Error

Ohio is conducting its first post-election audits. Like the recent audits in Humboldt, CA, and CT, the Ohio audit has uncovered discrepancies in the machine and manual counts. Here is one of the stories, by Kim Zetter at Wired <read> Montgomery County officials discovered that although the five votes were recorded to a memory card … Continue reading “Another Audit – Another Diebold Error”

Ohio is conducting its first post-election audits. Like the recent audits in Humboldt, CA, and CT, the Ohio audit has uncovered discrepancies in the machine and manual counts. Here is one of the stories, by Kim Zetter at Wired <read>

Montgomery County officials discovered that although the five votes were recorded to a memory card inside the voting machine, the votes weren’t counted by the tabulation software when the memory card was uploaded to the tabulation server. Premier’s Global Election Management System (or GEMS) is the tabulation software that counts votes from memory cards.

We also note the excellent comments of John Gideon of VotersUnite <read>

What does Diebold/Premier have to say? “We have not seen this particular condition anywhere else in Ohio or anywhere else in the country,” according to spokesman Chris Riggall. Clearly Riggall is joking. Of course they haven’t seen this condition in Ohio because Ohio has not done these audits in the past and the lack of audits across most of the rest of the country would ensure that no problems would have been found in the past. Where there are audits that may have found this condition, the condition is ignored or just shrugged-off. What they ignore is that there is federal law that dictates accuracy of voting systems and even the loss of these 5 ballots in a county that saw over 280,000 ballots cast is a violation of that law


What does this Diebold error mean for Connecticut?
Continue reading “Another Audit – Another Diebold Error”

CT: Audits Accurate? How Many Votes Is A Handful?

If we dismiss every discrepancy as human hand count error, how would we know if there was an optical scanner error – caused by the scanner hardware, human error, or human fraud?
AP article in the Hartford Courant: Audits: Conn. voting machine counts accurate

If we dismiss every discrepancy as human hand count error, how would we know if there was an optical scanner error – caused by the scanner hardware, human error, or human fraud?

AP article in the Hartford Courant: Audits: Conn. voting machine counts accurate: <read>

Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz (‘BYE-suh-wits) says audits of some of the state’s voting machines show they produced extremely accurate vote totals for last month’s elections.

Bysiewicz says her office reviewed results in 10 percent of the state’s voting precincts, as required by law, by comparing the machine totals with hand-count results.

Bysiewicz spokesman Av Harris says none of the totals were off by more than a handful of votes. He says past experience has shown that minor discrepancies are usually the result of human error during the hand counts.

The University of Connecticut will be doing a more thorough analysis.

Bysiewicz says Connecticut residents should feel confident that the optical scan machines are counting their votes correctly.

The Connecticut Citizen Audit Coalition will also be doing a more thorough analysis. In the meantime, we have reviewed some of the official audit reports filed by municipalities. Here is an image of one report from just one Connecticut city. <view>

To save you time, the discrepancies in various candidate counts in this one district are:
13, -2, 10, -11, 28, 13, 8, 16, 1, 12, 93
(we corrected for the one obvious error in the last column)

The discrepancy of 93 was in one of the Registrar Of Voters races, not one of those “challenging” cross-endorsement races.

Update: From NorwalkPlus: Results of 2008 post election audit show accurate Election Day machine counts <read>

By Secretary of the State’s Office

…“We set a record in Connecticut on November 4th with 1.64 million people casting ballots and Election Day went remarkably smoothly,” said Secretary Bysiewicz. “The results of this audit indicate, once again, that the optical scan voting system is secure and extremely accurate. Connecticut voters can be confident in the integrity of our elections and that their votes were counted correctly. Still, I’m not asking anyone to simply take my word for it: that’s why these post-election procedures are so important. We want to shine the light on the electoral process, before and after all votes are cast. So far, Connecticut’s new voting machines have passed the test every step of the way.”

As part of Connecticut’s audit law, believed to be the toughest in the United States…

While the audits did uncover accurate machine counts on Election Day, there were discrepancies in isolated cases involving the hand-count audits for some ballots marked with votes for major party candidates who were cross endorsed by minor parties.

Minnesota Recount vs. Connecticut Recanvass

The Minnesota recount which started on November 19th goes on and will probably continue for several additional days, perhaps weeks. You can read about some of the details of the ongoing Minnesota senate recount at the blog of the Citizens for Voting Integrity MN <blog> We ask: Would this happen here, in Connecticut? Should this … Continue reading “Minnesota Recount vs. Connecticut Recanvass”

The Minnesota recount which started on November 19th goes on and will probably continue for several additional days, perhaps weeks. You can read about some of the details of the ongoing Minnesota senate recount at the blog of the Citizens for Voting Integrity MN <blog>

We ask:

  • Would this happen here, in Connecticut?
  • Should this happen here, in Connecticut?

Continue reading “Minnesota Recount vs. Connecticut Recanvass”

CT: How Many Errors Can You Find In This Story?

Update: Cross posted at MyLeftNutmeg. See some of the comments there, especially Tessa’s describing obtaining election results on election night in Milford. <read> ConnPost has an article on errors in Shelton on election night. But we find other possible inaccuracies in the story as reported: State: Shelton vote snafu ‘human error”, <read> Shelton’s arithmetically challenged … Continue reading “CT: How Many Errors Can You Find In This Story?”

Update: Cross posted at MyLeftNutmeg. See some of the comments there, especially Tessa’s describing obtaining election results on election night in Milford. <read>

ConnPost has an article on errors in Shelton on election night. But we find other possible inaccuracies in the story as reported: State: Shelton vote snafu ‘human error”, <read>

Shelton’s arithmetically challenged voting officials snatched away a local victory from Democratic congressional challenger Jim Himes a week after initial results indicated that he won the city, state officials have determined…

It didn’t get straightened out until Nov. 13, nine days after veteran U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays conceded that Himes had won the Fourth Congressional District race representing 19 southwestern Connecticut communities.

Bysiewicz said there was no political malice involved, a fact that the feuding local voter registrars — Democrat John “Jack” Finn and Republican Peter R. Pavone — agree upon. With a lingering controversy over an incorrect result on a local ballot question sharply dividing the two registrars, both Finn and Pavone say it was strictly erroneous tabulation that initially had Himes winning in the part of the city that’s in the Fourth District.

While the initial results had Shays with 7,114 votes and Himes with 7,632, after Pavone and Finn performed the recount, Shays had 7,668 and Himes had 6,744…

Finn said, “A mistake could have come from a person reading the number to the person on the computer. It had to be an error putting numbers into the computer.” He noted that Shays’ absentee ballots were also initially omitted.

We are pleased that the error has been corrected and that it did not change the results of the race. It would be even better if the registrars could manage to get along.

This was not the only error found in reporting results in Shelton:

“The discrepancies seem to be in the congressional races where there were cross endorsements,” Bysiewicz said. “Shelton’s one of those weird, split towns where there are two districts.”

“I definitely think it was human error, a transcription problem,” recalled state Sen. Dan Debicella, R-Shelton, who won re-election that night, but whose numbers also changed over the week and a half it took to agree on a final total…

There were also transcription errors when election officials dictated results that were typed incorrectly onto city spread sheets.

Bysiewicz believes that initial miscounts on absentee ballots was another problem…

“Arithmetic mistakes are not unusual,” Bysiewicz said, noting that her staff even found a mistake in the turnout percentage of the finalists for her “Democracy Cup” award that goes to the towns and cities with the highest Election Day turnout.

“Avon said they had 96 percent, but when we when crunched the numbers ourselves they were wrong and New Hartford ended up being the winner,” she said.

There is also plenty of confusion about the dual endorsements:

Part of the problems, Bysiewicz said last week, was that Himes was cross endorsed by the Working Families Party, so he appeared on the ballot in two places.

Some voters filled in their ballots in both spots and in those cases, if the tabulation machines did not reject the ballots, the votes were given to Himes on the Working Families ballot line.

“It’s not in [state] law, but it’s our advice to count double votes for Working Families, or whatever the cross endorsement is, because it’s up to us to help the minor parties,” Bysiewicz said.

We question the statement that “the tabulation machines did not reject the ballots, the votes were given to Himes on the Working Families ballot line”. Our understanding is that when a voter voted for the same candidate, they were counted once but then listed as UNK (unknown party) on the tabulator tape. The hand counted ballots should also have been counted that same way as UNK. We presume the Post misunderstood the Secretary.

It is also our understanding that the Secretary of the State did make a decision to not only count the UNK votes for the Working Families Party, but also to total them in the same bucket when reporting results on her website.

We are not sure if the following statement is correct:

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said a review last week of the city’s mistakes found that Shelton had the biggest Election Day tabulation breakdown among the state’s 169 towns and cities.

Our understanding is that there are still unresolved errors in Stamford, from a comment on a post on MyLeftNutmeg on the Shelton story <ref>:

Weird numbers in Stamford too… on the Constitutional Convention. The original number they sent to the SOTS office was 41,775 “no” votes. That was amended to something like 23,000 “no” votes due to an “Excel error,” I’m told. That’s a pretty big error. The original number is still posted on the SOTS web site.

If true, then perhaps it was not a “tabulation breakdown among the state’s 169 towns and cities” but made elsewhere. Looking at the Stamford numbers at the Secretary of the State’s web this morning, we see:

President Total Votes 49543 McCain 17510 Obama 31733 Nadar 289 Others 11

Congress Total Votes 47327 Shays 19735 Himes-D 26039 Duffee 213 Himes-WF 1035 Carrano 305

Question 1 Total Votes 58024 Yes 16249 No 41775

Question 2 Total Votes 49087 Yes 25679 No 23408

Looks like there is, at minimum, an anamoly of about 9,000 votes.

A big part of a solution would be for all polling place moderators to be required to fax their moderators’ returns, checklist reports, and tabulator tapes to the Secretary of the State’s Office on election night. The Secretary’s Office post the faxed images on the web, along with much more detailed keyed in results, in downloadable format. Then interested parties would be able to check the data. Of course, the remaining potential transcription error gap is hand counted ballots and hand transcribed numbers to the moderators’ reports not on the tabulator tapes.