2015 | CTVotersCount.org

UConn Researchers: Turnout goes down as corruption goes up.

To increase turnout, lets avoid the gimmicks with integrity risks or unproven claims. Lets start with the hard work of rooting out corruption. There is a worse alternative, we could avoid looking. Maybe the public would be more likely to vote if corruption were ignored.

As we have mentioned before, turnout is the “Holy Grail” of elections. Any election reform is touted as a means of increasing turnout. From touch screens to early voting that is one of the justifications, yet in actuality touch screens create annoying lines and early voting actually DECREASES turnout. Here is a post from today, showing 5 Ways To Fix America’s Dismal Turnout Problem: <read> Some of these might help, especially “Get people excited about politics between elections””. Of course, it might depend on what type of excitement:

We also have this recent report from three researchers, two from the University of Connecticut: Bribes and ballots: The impact of corruption on voter turnout in democracies <full report>

Abstract
While officials involved in graft, bribery, extortion, nepotism, or patronage typically like keeping their deeds private, the fact that corruption can have serious effects in democracies is no secret. Numerous scholars have brought to light the impact of corruption on a range of economic and political outcomes. One outcome that has received less attention, however, is voter turnout. Do high levels of corruption push electorates to avoid the polls or to turn out in larger numbers? Though of great consequence to the corruption and voter-turnout literature, few scholars in either area have tackled this question and none has done so in a broad sample of democracies. This article engages in this endeavor through an analysis of the broadest possible sample of democratic states. Through instrumental variable regression we find that as corruption increases the percentage of voters who go to the polls decreases.

Who could have imagined! This might just be an area needing attention in Connecticut. In recent years,

One Governor jailed for taking favors
One Mayor convicted of taking favors, one jailed for taking bribes, and another for sex acts with youth in his office
A State Senator jailed for taking bribes
A road built with missing drain pipes, despite contracted inspections
New Uconn buildings on two campuses with faulty construction
Secretary of the State used state resources to make a mailing list for campaign purposes

In the last year, mostly since the last election,

Three registrars may be removed from office for multiple failures around election day
That same former Governor indicted for campaign fraud violations in a U.S. House Race, along with the candidate and her husband
That same State Senator out of jail, ran again, under investigation for multiple campaign finance violations
Two of three candidates in a three-way Senate primary have not paid their municipal taxes
The current Secretary of the State used a mailing list for a “newsletter” for campaign purposes, and under suspicion of renewing a questionable Notary appointment for political reasons

Most residents could add to the list!

So, to increase turnout, lets avoid the gimmicks with integrity risks or unproven claims. Lets start with the hard work of rooting out corruption.

There is a worse alternative, we could avoid looking. Maybe the public would be more likely to vote if corruption were ignored.

Two days at the Voting and Elections Summit

Three simple ideas standout among the many things I learned and relearned:

When we are concerned about every cost associated with voting, small and large, compare those costs to what we spend “spreading democracy” elsewhere.
Contemplate what people spend in time and expense for the excitement of the Superbowl. Why are we not similarly engaged in Election Day, where the who wins is much more significant to our lives?
Should we be at least as concerned with protecting and auditing paper ballots, as we are with the footballs used in the semi-finals?

I always get rejuvenated with new ideas and camaraderie of a conference. For the last two days I have participated in the Voting and Elections Summit in Washington, D.C.

If you or anyone you know needs help with registering to vote or absentee voting the source of help is the U.S. Vote Foundation or the Overseas Vote Foundation.

Three simple ideas standout among the many things I learned and relearned:

When we are concerned about every cost associated with voting, small and large, compare those costs to what we spend “spreading democracy” elsewhere.
Contemplate what people spend in time and expense for the excitement of the Superbowl. Why are we not similarly engaged in Election Day, where who wins is actually much more significant to our lives?
Should we be at least as concerned with protecting and auditing paper ballots, as we are with the footballs used in the semi-finals?

Monday and Tuesday, I will be back at the Capitol considering what might be possible in the future, while wondering if we are willing to pay for a voting system worthy of the potential value of trustworthy elections, at the NIST Future of Voting Symposium II. Yes, I went to the 1st Symposium and Connecticut benefited.

Sanity returns (mostly) to Maryland

Paper Ballots Return to Maryland Elections. Once Maryland implements optical scan, there will only be five states left without a voter verified paper record for voting.

Paper Ballots Return to Maryland Elections <read>. Once Maryland implements optical scan, there will only be five states left without a voter verified paper record for voting. Apparently Maryland is very very slow at starting what they mandate.

The Maryland Board of Elections’ state administrator, Linda Lamone, said the coming year will be spent preparing polling center volunteers and educating voters.

Lamone said the General Assembly was given the go-ahead for the paper system in 2007, but only received funding for the switch last year. The cost to lease the machines alone is roughly $25 million, but that does not include additional costs such as storage and transportation of the units before and on Election Day.

She said one of the reasons for the mandate was that lawmakers “felt that it was safer” to have a paper record of every vote cast.

Lamone is know for opposing optical scan. We recall a Connecticut study in 2006 by TrueVoteCT’s Michael Fisher that demonstrated the total costs of acquiring and using optical scan at about half the comparable costs of DRE (Touch Screen) voting systems now in use in Maryland – Optical scanners cost a lot more, but you need only one and a backup to a polling place, you only have to program two, and the last longer.

We point out the obvious that Lamone must have had to transport and store the larger number of DREs as well.

Digital Democracy Good – for Voting Bad Bad Bad!

Our friends across the pond are thinking of Internet Voting. Tech unsavvy elders apparently want to entice young voters. Hopefully, the young are savvy enough to understand the security risks and are too smart to trust democracy to smart phones.

Editorial in ComputerWorldUK highlighted at TheVotingNews: Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting

Editorial in ComputerWorldUK highlighted at TheVotingNews: Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting <read>

Enabling people to vote online would indeed draw in many young people who otherwise wouldn’t vote, and that’s hugely important. So why am I against the idea? Well, the report quotes a good encapsulation of the key issues here by the Open Rights Group:

Voting is a uniquely difficult question for computer science: the system must verify your eligibility to vote; know whether you have already voted; and allow for audits and recounts. Yet it must always preserve your anonymity and privacy. Currently, there are no practical solutions to this highly complex problem and existing systems are unacceptably flawed.

Another warning [.pdf] comes from a formidable trio of security researchers in their submission to the Digital Democracy Commission:

In our view, the adoption of online voting technology would present extremely grave challenges to the integrity of UK elections, and risk disadvantaging significant sections of the population, which would present a real danger of undermining public confidence in democracy rather than strengthening it as the Commission rightly seeks to do.

Finally, people who oppose the use of new technology for well-established activities are sometimes accused of being Luddites and of letting their ignorance stand in the way of perfectly acceptable change. In the case of e-voting, we believe that the more familiar people are with the technology, the more they understand the very substantial risks that it poses to the democratic process. It is ignorance that leads people to suppose that e-voting is risk-free and desirable; and it is technical experts such as us (and our colleagues whose carefully-argued papers we have cited) who are cautioning against embracing e-voting for the foreseeable future.

Citizen Audit Cites Improvements, Faults Flaws, in Official Election Audits

SOTS Office makes improvements, significant Registrars of Voters flaws continue

Improvements noted by the Citizen Audit include:

Small, yet significant improvements in and corrections to the Official Audit Procedures made by the Secretary of the State’s Office (SOTS Office) at the request of the Citizen Audit.
Increased integrity and credibility of the audit based on a Citizen Audit of the random drawing of districts and races. (As reported separately on 1/21/2015)
- Significantly fewer errors in the random drawing list in November 2014 compared to November 2013.
- Public and transparent drawing of races to be audited after the November election.

The audit observation report concluded that the official audit results do not inspire confidence after eight years and fourteen audits, because of the continued:

Lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
Discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities.
Lack of investigation of such discrepancies, and the lack of standards for triggering such investigations.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.

The audit observations also uncovered tabulator errors and inadequate election procedures which cause some votes for registered write-in candidates to not be counted.

Citizen Audit spokesperson Luther Weeks stated, “We appreciate improvements made by the Secretary of the State’s Office. We remain disappointed after eight years that significant improvements remain to achieve a credible audit, especially by local election officials, in too many municipalities.”

<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release>
Detail data/municipal reports <Nov> <Aug>

SOTS Office makes improvements, significant Registrars of Voters flaws continue

Improvements noted by the Citizen Audit include:

Small, yet significant improvements in and corrections to the Official Audit Procedures made by the Secretary of the State’s Office (SOTS Office) at the request of the Citizen Audit.
Increased integrity and credibility of the audit based on a Citizen Audit of the random drawing of districts and races. (As reported separately on 1/21/2015)
- Significantly fewer errors in the random drawing list in November 2014 compared to November 2013.
- Public and transparent drawing of races to be audited after the November election.

The audit observation report concluded that the official audit results do not inspire confidence after eight years and fourteen audits, because of the continued:

Lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
Discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities.
Lack of investigation of such discrepancies, and the lack of standards for triggering such investigations.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.

The audit observations also uncovered tabulator errors and inadequate election procedures which cause some votes for registered write-in candidates to not be counted.

<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release>
Detail data/municipal reports <Nov> <Aug>

Hartford Election Report: Sad, yet an easy recommended read.

As they and we often say, “Diagnosis before cure”. Lest the cure be ineffective or worse than the disease.

The Hartford Common Council empowered a Committee of Inquiry to gather facts on the widely reported late opening of polls on election day, the long known disfunction in the Registrars Office, and the less reported inaccurate, yet to be corrected reports of election results. We recommend reading the whole report. It is an easy read, yet sad, disappointing, and as some have said outrageous

The Hartford Common Council empowered a Committee of Inquiry to gather facts on the widely reported late opening of polls on election day, the long known disfunction in the Registrars Office, and the less reported inaccurate, yet to be corrected reports of election results. Here is the summary. We recommend reading the whole report. It is an easy read, yet sad, disappointing, and as some have said outrageous. <full report>

The Committee’s investigation confirmed that several Hartford polling places did not allow voting to commence at 6:00 a.m., as required by law. In addition, the investigation revealed additional irregularities. The Head Moderator failed to account for all of the absentee ballots received, failed to correctly tally and report the vote count, and failed to submit a timely Amended Head Moderator’s Return. The Hartford Registrars:

failed to provide the Secretary of the State (“SOTS”) with information about the polling place moderators ;

failed to file the final registry books with the Town Clerk by October 29

failed to timely prepare and deliver the final registry books by 8:00 p.m. on November 3, and thereafter failed to develop or implement a plan for delivering the books to the polling places before the polls opened at 6:00 a.m. on November 4;

failed to adequately prepare and open several polling places;

failed to maintain adequate communications among key election day personnel;

failed to provide the Head Moderator with the proper form to submit his Head Moderator’s Return in advance of the election;

failed to attend a statutorily required meeting to correct errors in the Head Moderator’s Return; and

failed to identify and correct discrepancies in the vote tallies reported by the Head Moderator, with the result that the final vote tally remains unclear, and no Hartford election official can explain what happened to approximately 70 absentee ballots reported as having been received

In short, multiple, serious errors plagued the administration of the 2014 General Election in Hartford. These errors appear to have resulted in the disenfranchisement of Hartford voters and, even several months later, a lack of an accurate vote count.

The Committee has determined that many of the Election Day problems are attributable to errors or omissions by certain Hartford election officials (as described in detail below); a dysfunctional working relationship among all election officials; a lack of leadership and accountability; and the absence of a clear, legally prescribed chain of command.

Once again, I recommend reading the entire report. It really brings home the points made in the summary.

I add some additional thoughts:

Nobody seems interested in actually determining what happened to the “missing” ballots, or determining the actual vote count — a team could easily get all the numbers from the tape and at least determine votes for governor from the machines, which are very very likely to be less than the number of ballots counted by the machines — this report demonstrates, unsurprisingly, that people should not count anything alone, but should work together to verify addition and transcription. Double checking by “two eyes” works.
Some authority could also actually count all the ballots and votes by hand. I will guarantee the number of votes per race will not exceed the number of ballots. (If the count is accurate)
Someone authority could actually count the number of envelopes for ABs. Then count then number of ABs checked-off, then count the number returned on the Clerk’s log…then if there is a discrepancy, match the envelopes to the voter names on both those lists to help uncover the source of any differences.
How many other towns have check-in lists, or ballot counts that are way off from vote counts? Does anybody check…or has this only surfaced because of the visible problems on election day? (We know some towns and moderators check and that others have at least sometimes not)
The official system has yet to a) recognize the actual counts in Bridgeport for Governor in 2010. b) never audited the other towns in 2010 with many copied, hand counted ballots c) Never checked other towns since then that that have had huge numbers of hand counted votes on copied ballots – even those that have chosen deliberately to forgo scanners in some elections. d) Never checked the discrepancies between voters checked-in in Bridgeport vs. ballots in 2010, or checked for such errors anywhere else!!!
And, in Hartford, how about checking the reported counts that weren’t for Governor?

Make no mistake. We applaud the investigation as far as it went. It provides plenty to consider and change.

Yet the Hartford Courant is dissatisfied with the report, apparently believes the investigation was unnecessary. Reflection and deliberation, based on effective gathering of facts, in their opinion, seems a waste of time. The Editorial Board would also apparently place the prime responsibility for choosing actions solely on the Mayor over the entire Council.

Thumbs down on lack of city plan to fix registrar mess-ups

Thumbs still down on Hartford’s handling of the registrar of voters mess. Mayor Pedro Segarra and city council president Shawn Wooden formed a council committee to investigate the registrars’ election day screw-ups. The committee reported Friday what everyone already knew — the registrars bungled things so badly that some polls were unable to open on time. The Friday announcement is full of indignant language — but not a peep about what the mayor plans to do about the situation. “That is being determined,” a spokesperson said. Lame.

As they and we often say, “Diagnosis before cure”. Lest the cure be ineffective or worse than the disease.

WNPR Where We Live: Inside Cyber Security

Yesterday, Where We Live, with John Dankowski, was a discussion of Cyber Security for consumers and business.

At about 17:49 into the show, I called in and reminded John Dankoski of the Secretary of the State’s Symposium on Online voting that he moderated just over three years ago. In response to my comment, Professor Bryan Ford of Yale, gave a very thorough summary of the potential risks of Internet voting.

Yesterday, Where We Live, with John Dankoski, was a discussion of Cyber Security for consumers and business. Listen to the program here <podcast>

At about 17:49 into the show, I called in and reminded John Dankoski of the Secretary of the State’s Symposium on Online Voting that he moderated just over three years ago. The Symposium was intended for legislators. Only three actually attended.

To little avail, the legislature twice passed Internet voting for military and overseas voters – every time a business, government agency, or the Military is hacked it gets less and less believable that Internet voting is safe for democracy, less and less believable that the State or all of our 169 towns can defend Internet voting from attackers.

In response to my comment, Professor Bryan Ford of Yale, gave a very thorough summary of the potential risks of Internet voting.

The whole show is a great summary of the wide range of risks to consumers and the challenges to our infrastructure, specifically utilities.

Election Reformers as Entertainers?

Last week Paul Krugman had an interesting Economics editorial that by analogy can apply to some election reformers as well. In general, I agree with Mr. Krugman when it comes to Economics. Beyond that he has a skill making readable opinion pieces that make single points well, even if they are based on very detailed economic theory or analysis. This article is a little different in subject, yet makes an important, useful point that applies widely, including to election reformers

Last week Paul Krugman had an interesting Economics editorial that by analogy can apply to some election reformers as well: Economists as Entertainers <read>

In general, I agree with Mr. Krugman when it comes to Economics. Beyond that he has a skill making readable opinion pieces that make single points well, even if they are based on very detailed economic theory or analysis. This article is a little different in subject, yet makes an important, useful point that applies widely, including to election reformers:

According to researchers in Britain, more than half of the health advice that Dr. Oz gives is either baseless (there’s no evidence for his claims) or wrong (there is evidence, and it contradicts what he says). Julia Belluz at Vox tells us not to be surprised: “He is, after all, in the business of entertainment,” she wrote recently.

But the thing is, there are a lot of Dr. Ozzes out there, including in areas you might not consider the entertainment business…

But I now also suspect that the personality traits you need to be an effective entertainer working with not-so-much-fun subjects like health or monetary policy are inherently at odds with the traits you need to be even halfway competent.

If Dr. Oz were the kind of guy who pores over medical evidence to be sure he knows what he’s talking about, he probably couldn’t project the persona that wins him such a large audience. Similarly, a hired-gun economist who actually knows how to download charts from economic databases probably wouldn’t have the kind of blithe certainty in right-wing dogma that his employers want.

How does this apply to election reformers?

It seems to me, in my experience, that many reformers are always rational and scientific in their approach to any issue, even though they may have biases. We try hard at CTVotersCount, in posts, and in testimony, to provide honest, accurate and comprehensive information about election issues even when the evidence hurts our case. (Hopefully, if there is enough evidence against our position we will change our position, if the weight of accumulated evidence points away from our past position.)

Yet, we run into others who frequently tout things that are unproven, untrue, and contrary to evidence. For example:

Legislators and advocates that ignore the evidence of electronic vulnerability to claim that Internet voting is safe. Despite of the evidence of hacking of business and government; despite the opposition of security experts and computer scientists, including those at Homeland Security, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Department of Defense studies; despite the fact that online banking is safe only because banks pay billions annual to reimburse for theft.
Advocates that claim that early voting will increase turnout, when it actually decreases turnout. (There are reasons to be for and against early voting, but turnout is not a reason to be for it.)
Advocates for Voter ID who claim, despite evidence to the contrary, that there is a lot of votER fraud. Despite several witch hunts after every election, votER fraud is very very low.
Advocates for absentee/mail-in voting that claim that no votER fraud means that such voting is safe. They ignore and deny the actual evidence of frequent multiple-ballot votING fraud, that is accomplished by mail.
Advocates for the National Popular Vote Agreement that claim, for no reason, that fraud and suppression will not increase in all states, just as we have seen in some swing states, if we go to a popular vote without a uniform, enforceable voting system to match.
Advocates for the National Popular Vote Agreement who claim there could be a recount after a popular vote, when half of states have no recount law, all laws are based on close state votes – not close national votes, and that there is no body to declare and manage a nationwide recount.

Just some of the examples analogous to Paul Krugman’s Economic Entertainers. Yet, we have a hard time calling them Entertainers. Some are incompetent, some deluded, and others we might call advocates or lobbyists for hire.

Not everything you want, is a solution to every problem

In Wednesday’s print edition of the Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda Toward A More Open Government. There is much to like and agree with in the editorial: Stronger investigative subpoena for state prosecutors; closing the cash spigot for campaign finance; and strengthening the watchdog agencies.

While we are skeptical of the benefits of open primaries, their potential, and ultimately the value of “more moderate nominees”, we are particularly in disagreement with one section, Do-Over for Early Voting.

Its been said that when you only have a hammer, you see that as a cure to every problem.

In Wednesday’s print edition of the Hartford Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda Toward A More Open Government,<read>. There is much to like and agree with in the editorial: Stronger investigative subpoena for state prosecutors; closing the cash spigot for campaign finance; and strengthening the watchdog agencies.

It’s a shame that voters turned down a ballot question that would have removed rigid language in the state constitution that restricts voting to just one day and the voter to one polling place. Lawmakers should put the question on the ballot again.

The measure would have permitted the General Assembly to authorize early voting, no-excuse absentee voting and voting by mail — reforms that make voting more convenient for busy people and increase turnout.

Thirty-four states have early voting, which means the polls are open longer hours or for days before Election Day. Any of these reforms would have been an antidote to the kind of official incompetence that shortened voting hours in Hartford on Nov. 4.

As we have covered in several posts before the election, <here here here here> we have several concerns with no-excuse absentee/mail-in voting. While we support in-person early voting, we doubt that the Connecticut Legislature is ready to pay for the expenses and call for the reorganization necessary to support in-person early voting.

With regards to this specific editorial, we point out that:

We do not get a link between the problems in Hartford in 2014 and an obvious cure in early voting or no-excuse absentee/mail-in voting. One view is that absentee check-off and list printing was too much work to get done in time for election day opening – increasing early voting would only add to that. Another view is that it was some combination of incompetence and arrogance that caused the problems – more early voting would not solve such problems.

Its been said that when you only have a hammer, you see that as a cure to every problem.

In the past it was argued that the problems of Hurricane Sandy would have been solved by early voting – that also is hard to understand unless voters appropriately predict a storm and voted early, while officials were able to expand early voting to cover an unanticipated volume. Or conversely the storm hit during early voting and the post-office managed to still get the votes in, while officials were able to increase capacity on election day to make up for unexpected lower early voting.

Also early voting in none of its forms increases turnout, in actually DECREASES turnout. Once again, we have covered this in several posts over the years <e.g. here>. As we pointed out last time, the Courant does not listen to computer science and security professionals when it comes to connecting our voting machines to the Internet. Here they should be listening to political scientists who show that early voting decreases turnout.