Timely for us in Connecticut as our Legislature contemplates online, email, or fax voting for military voters, while they also contemplate mandating towns to provide Internet access to all registrars.
All we can say is “If election officials cannot afford to be on the Internet, how can they provide online, email, or fax voting? If they do not use email, how can they understand Internet Security?”
Coalition Finds Continuing Problems with Election Audit and A New Flaw
Post-Election Audit Flawed from the Start by Highly Inaccurate List
of Election Districts
The report concluded, the official audit results do not inspire confidence because of the:
Lack of integrity in the random district selection.
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 andthelack of standards for determining need for further investigation of discrepancies.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.
Coalition spokesperson Luther Weeks noted, “We found significant, unexplained errors, for municipalities across the state, in the list of districts in the random drawing. This random audit was highly flawed from the start because the drawing was highly flawed.”
Cheryl Dunson, President, League of Women Voters of Connecticut, stated,, “Two years ago, the Legislature passed a law, at the Secretary of the State’s request, which was intended to fix inaccuracies in the drawing. For whatever reason, errors in the drawing have dramatically increased.
Weeks added, “Some officials follow the audit procedures and do effective work. This year one town investigated discrepancies and found errors to correct in their election procedures – that is one value of performing the audits as intended.”
Without adherence to procedures, accurate random drawings, a reliable chain-of-custody, and transparent public follow-up, when discrepancies are reported, if there was ever a significant fraud or error it would not be recognized and corrected. <More Details>
Monday I testified on three bills, primarily the National Popular Vote Compact. Although I oppose the bill, and have since 2007, I actually favor the popular election of the President. Yet, we have a mismatch between our current state-by-state election system which not a match for the demands of a national popular vote that is fair and one we can trust. Like Europe before the Euro, we have a lot of work to do and details to attend to before we could make the change.
The hearing was close to six and one-half hours, 11:00am – 5:30pm. I was next to the last speaker. I applaud the committee members and public staying until the end, especially the two Co-Chairs and the Senate Ranking Member – they really listened to me and the last speaker, they asked excellent questions and provided the time for complete answers. Five Registrars of Voters also stayed as well.
I applaud this Committee for holding hearings on this Unconstitutional, Risky, Unnecessary, and Discriminatory bill.Last year, without hearings, this concept it was placed far down in an unrelated emergency bill.
The value and risk will be in the details. Will the commission effectively address problems without causing unintended consequences? Or will it be a mixed bag of expensive reforms like the Help America Vote Act? Time will tell if the Commission and the Congress follow through on sensible reforms and heed the advice of advocates to consider voting integrity as part of actual reforms.
It has been a matter of consideral discussion and evaluation in Edmonton, Alberta. Should they jump on the bandwagon and double the cost of elections to accept the risks of Internet voting? For now, Edmonton is solidly on the side of science, rejecting Internet voting for very good reasons.
Like DDT, Nuclear Power, Fast Food, and GMOs, Internet voting has some very attractive, beneficial aspects, yet there are often unknown, overlooked, or downplayed real or potential problems. It takes a lot of careful research and evaluation to determine the net current and future risks and benefits.
There were several panels discussing the statistics from the November election and what is next. Two talks were particularly interesting, contrasting, and relevant. Take a look yourself and contemplate the difference between a successful, economical, conventional system to serve overseas voters and an expensive, risky, and unproven system of Internet voting yet to be implemented.
Yesterday, in the midst of the gun control hearings drawing a couple thousand, we spent an hour in a snowy entrance line to testify on two bills before the Government Elections and Administration Committee. We had planned on testifying on H.B. 5600, however, with many testifying on H.J. 16, I offered additional information to the Committee on that bill and on Internet voting, which was also discussed.
