Luther Weeks | CTVotersCount.org

NJ Chain-of-Custody: Six unsuccessful attempts to seal voting machines

Nothing approaching these six regimes and court challenges could happen in Connecticut! Unlike New Jersey, we have no standard seal “regime”, no standard for seals or ballot containers and any election regulations and procedures going beyond the law are unenforceable. Similar court challenges in the “Nutmeg State” would be about as useful as carved wooden nutmeg seals.

New Jersey has attempted six “Seal regimes” to protect their voting machines. Two new reports demonstrate the inadequacies of the seals and associated procedures. The reports document court testimony and contain sometimes graphic demonstrations of how easily various “tamper evident” seals can be compromised. [May not be deemed appropriate reading for officials and voters in some Connecticut towns]

Nothing like this could happen in Connecticut! Unlike New Jersey, we have no enforceable standards. See our editorial below.

The Reports

Security seals on voting machines: a case study, by Andrew W. Appel”Security seals on voting machines: a case study”, by Andrew W. Appel, Princeton University

Insecurity of New Jersey’s seal protocols for voting machines, by Roger G. Johnston

From Johnston:

In 2008 and 2009 the plaintiffs in the New Jersey voting-machine lawsuit, Gusciora v. Corzine, asked me to study the use of tamper-indicating security seals proposed by the New Jersey Division of Elections to secure their voting machines. In this paper I am making some of my assessments available to the public.

I found that the proposed seals and security measures are insufficient to guarantee election integrity. The skills, time, and resources to spoof these seals and security measures are not a major barrier to an adversary, and are, in fact, widely available. The design of the AVC Advantage voting machines themselves is not conducive to good security, especially the lack of security on the voter’s end of the machine. There are vulnerability and other problems with the seals chosen by New Jersey. Another serious problem is New Jersey’s failure to have well-designed seal use protocols in place. The lack of internal inspections of the voting machines is unfortunate, as is the State’s lack of concern about possible attacks on small numbers of voting machines (not just statewide attacks). I found that New Jersey does not exhibit a healthy security culture for elections, has no independent physical security experts and vulnerability assessors to advise the state, and misunderstands key security concepts. The poor security practices involved in storage, transport, and chain-of-custody for the voting machines are troubling as well…

154. In summary, I can state to a reasonable degree of certainty that the seals and security measures proposed by New Jersey to provide security for the AVC Advantage voting machines are insufficient to guarantee election integrity. The skills, time, and resources to spoof these seals and security measures are not a major barrier to an adversary, and are, in fact, widely available.

155. Various factors contribute to New Jersey’s ineffective security. The design of the AVC Advantage voting machines themselves is not conducive to good security, especially the lack of security on the voter’s end of the machine. There are vulnerability and other problems with the seals chosen by New Jersey. Another serious problem is New Jersey’s failure to have well-designed seal use protocols in place. The lack of internal inspections of the voting machines is unfortunate, as is the lack of concern about attacks on small numbers of voting machines given the number of close elections in the past.

156. Other negative factors include New Jersey’s failure to exhibit a healthy security culture for elections, the absence of independent physical security experts and vulnerability assessors to advise the state, and the state’s misunderstandings about key security concepts. The poor security practices involved in storage, transport, and chain-of-custody for the voting machines are troubling as well.

From Appel:

Tamper-evident seals are used by many states’ election officials on voting machines and ballot boxes, either to protect the computer and software from fraudulent modification or to protect paper ballots from fraudulent substitution or stuffing. Physical seals in general can be easily defeated, and the effectiveness of seals depends on the protocol for their application and inspection. The legitimacy of our elections may therefore depend on whether a particular state’s use of seals is effective to prevent, deter, or detect election fraud. This paper is a case study of the use of seals on voting machines by the State of New Jersey. I conclude that New Jersey’s protocols for the use of tamper-evident seals have been not at all effective. I conclude with a discussion of the more general problem of seals in democratic elections…

Simply slapping seals on a device does not magically protect it. Physical seals in general are can be defeated with simple techniques and at low cost [Johnston 1997a]. In addition the effectiveness of seals depends on having a protocol for their application and inspection [Johnston 1997b], otherwise one will notice if a seal has been replaced with a different one…

Appel demonstrates how, he as an amateur easily defeated several seals, one like many used in Connecticut to seal ballots:

The seals used by Union County are very easy to defeat in a few seconds, by poking a jeweler’s screwdriver into the opening and thereby disengaging the teeth. Strap seals in general are easy to defeat with simple tools [Johnston 1997a]. The jeweler’s screwdriver is not necessarily even the best or fastest way to defeat this seal; it is the one that occurred to the author, who was (at that time) entirely an amateur at defeating seals.

Like Connecticut there is no specific training on seal inspection for pollworkers or Moderators. Such training would likely be more challenging to implement in Connecticut, since we do not have specified standard seals or containers. In New Jersey:

Pollworkers are hired from among the general public to work 15 hours on election day for $200, with two hours of training before election day. This training covers how to run a polling place and conduct elections; it is not specific to seals. I have inspected the pollworker instruction manuals from three different counties; these manuals give no instruction in the purpose of the seals or in inspecting them for tampering.

Of course Connecticut uses different voting equipment and we have paper ballots to recanvass, recount, and audit. Yet, but the same seal challenges and risks apply. From Appel:

Therefore most computer scientists recommend methods of voting that allow computers to count the vote, with random audits to verify that (with high statistical probability) the computers are not cheating. For this to work, there must be a record of each ballot that is not mediated by a computer that could possibly cheat in creating this record. One method that satisfies these criteria is to let the ballots be paper optical-scan forms… Immediately at the close of the polls, the computer can report the candidate totals for that precinct, and in addition there are paper ballots that can be audited in a hand count of randomly selected precincts…

There remains a security problem to solve: how is the integrity of the ballot box to be maintained between the close of the polls and the time of the audit? One method would be to perform the audit immediately, in the presence of the same witnesses (from both political parties and from the State) that have been (presumably) watching the ballot box all day. This might be the best approach, but it has disadvantages: those witnesses may have been working for 14 hours already running the election, and it requires the random selection of precincts to audit to be made by the time the polls close.

Therefore it is usually presumed that some combination of security seals with chain-of-custody arrangements will provide for the integrity of the paper ballots. Therefore, the considerations discussed elsewhere in this paper—regarding security seals and their associated protocols—are very relevant to optical-scan balloting.

In Connecticut, we need to protect the ballots in order to trust the result of recanvasses, recounts, audits and investigations. But the results can only be no more reliable and credible than the chain-of-custody. And that chain-of-custody, is completely dependent on the seals used, seal protocols, actual practices, enforcement and enforceablity.

Editorial

Even if we had standards for seals and their inspection, not much would happen. Most of our statutes remain locked in the lever age, specifying that lever machines will be sealed with “a numbered metal seal” and some statutes covering earlier paper only elections where statutes require “ballot boxes” be sealed with “one adhesive ballot box sealing stamp” supplied by the Secretary of the State. We have no enforceable standards for ballot containers, ballots seals, tabulator seals, and “tamper evident” tape. Most interpret our statutes to mean that ballots do not have to be sealed beyond fourteen days after an election – with post-election audits commencing on day fifteen.

We located one section of the Connecticut statutes that was specifiably updated to address what happens if an optical scanner is found with a broken seal:

9-259 (c)…The seal on the tabulator shall remain unbroken. If the seal is broken, the registrars of voters shall be notified immediately and the tabulator tape shall be produced. If the tape does not show all zeros, the registrars of voters shall be notified immediately and the tabulator shall not be used.

So, even if a seal were broken, allowing an insider or outsider to change the memory card or “permanent” chips on the machine, as long as the the machine produced a zero tape then the election would go forward.

We have discussed seals and security before; highlighting the apparently unforeceable seals on our scanners specified by the Secretary of the State; and an earlier report on seals, also by, by Roger Johnson, and portions of the California Top-To-Bottom Review: FAQ – How can the scanner be hacked? It is kept in a canvas bag protected by a tamper-evident seal!

We also point to the Coalition post-election audit reports which have documented the failure of election officials to follow chain-of-custody procedures, for example <read>

For more on Connecticut chain-of-custody, read our next post about a recent election in Colorado.

In 2008 and 2009 the plaintiffs in the New Jersey voting-machine lawsuit, Gusciora v. Corzine, asked me to study the use of tamper-indicating security seals proposed by the New Jersey Division of Elections to secure their voting machines. In this paper I am making some of my assessments available to the public.
I found that the proposed seals and security measures are insufficient to guarantee election integrity. The skills, time, and resources to spoof these seals and security measures are not a major barrier to an adversary, and are, in fact, widely available. The design of the AVC Advantage voting machines themselves is not conducive to good security, especially the lack of security on the voter’s end of the machine. There are vulnerability and other problems with the seals chosen by New Jersey. Another serious problem is New Jersey’s failure to have well-designed seal use protocols in place. The lack of internal inspections of the voting machines is unfortunate, as is the State’s lack of concern about possible attacks on small numbers of voting machines (not just statewide attacks). I found that New Jersey does not exhibit a healthy security culture for elections, has no independent physical security experts and vulnerability assessors to advise the state, and misunderstands key security concepts. The poor security practices involved in storage, transport, and chain-of-custody for the voting machines are troubling as well.

No-Excuse for Mail-In Voting and three “interesting” bills

Today we sent the following email to nine legislators proposing a total of six bills this year in Connecticut for no-excuse absentee voting. Some of the bills state the purpose of increasing voter participation. The facts don’t seem to support the claim of increased participation.

Subject: No-Excuse Absentee Voting Bill: __

Senator/Representative ___,

I am writing because you are a sponsor of the above bill for early voting via no-excuse absentee voting.

Consider this PEW sponsored. University of Wisconsin research, that shows early voting has the effect of DECREASING turnout. And candidates are having challenges with advertising and GOTV. https://ctvoterscount.org/researchers-early-voting-alone-decreases-turnout/

Here is another article about various concerns with mail voting: https://ctvoterscount.org/vote-by-mail-cheaper-but-advocates-have-concerns/
Including a study of three CA counties showing a similar drop in turn-out in all but special elections: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~tkousser/votebymail.htm

PS: CTVotersCount is primarily opposed to, expanded mail-in or no-excuse absentee voting because of the opportunity and record of fraud – it seems that after every national election we find stories of fraud, prosecution, and conviction based on mail-in voting. Recent examples:
OH: https://ctvoterscount.org/absentee-ballot-fraud-in-ohio/
FL: https://ctvoterscount.org/no-excuse-absentee-voting-unintended-consequences/
AZ, CA, FL: https://ctvoterscount.org/absenteeearly-voting-raise-questions-and-risks/
TX: https://ctvoterscount.org/how-not-to-increase-voter-participation/

Readers may also be interested in three bills that will likely be dead on arrival:

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/TOB/h/pdf/2011HB-05727-R00-HB.pdf

Purpose: To reform post-election audit procedures.

(1) after an audit, a town shall have a four-year exemption to relieve the town from holding a post-election audit, provided such town is a small town; and (2) registrars of voters shall no longer be held personally liable for finesfor failure to comply with audit procedures. Instead, such fines shall be levied against the municipalities.

Reform? It would gut the post-election audit law since random audits of all districts are required to catch fraud and error, at the expense of mid and large municipalities. After an audit, a small town would have a four year open season for covering errors and insider fraud.

A rather unique concept that municipalities pay fines for the failure of officials to follow laws and procedures. Should that be extended to Mayors and Governors? Perhaps election officials should be required to budget in advance for their future anticipated transgressions. (Note: We are aware of no fines as yet having been imposed for violations of the post-election audit law, and in Connecticut procedures and regulations are unenforceable.)

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/TOB/s/pdf/2011SB-00646-R00-SB.pdf

provide that the threshold for state-wide automatic recounts in closely contested elections be lowered to a three-thousand-vote difference.

Quite an accomplishment to lower it to 3000, since the current threshold is a 2000 vote difference. We would likely support the increase.

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/TOB/h/pdf/2011HB-05732-R00-HB.pdf

require a receipt for ballots cast by voters who vote by coloring in, with pencil, their selections and feed their ballots into a reader or by electronically recording selections using a station designed for physically disabled voters unable to use a paper ballot.

This would eliminate the secret ballot that protects us from vote buying and coercion. Anyone can use a machine designed for the disabled…so anyone can get a receipt and sell their vote or be coerced!!! PS: This would hardly help the blind voter, the most likely disabled users of our difficult to setup and use IVS system. Update: On closer reading of the part before the “or”, the act would not only apply to IVS voters, but to anyone who brings a pencil to the polls and uses it to fill out their ballot. No mention of how the receipt would be generated.

1984: Enfield suppresses film – Librarians defend access to information

Hats off to the “Constitution State” librarians and the Connecticut Library Association for defending our rights. They have done this before.

Four years ago we were scheduled to show “Hacking Democracy” at a library. A local election official put pressure on the head librarian to cancel the showing and the discussion.

CTVotersCount is dedicated to voting integrity for the benefit of Connecticut voters. Other issues are also critical to elections and democracy. Among those are a vibrant free press and free speech – an informed electorate is as critical to democracy as voting integrity.

Enfield, Connecticut has suppressed the film “Sicko”. We are proud to see the strong response from Connecticut Librarians. Courant Article: Library Cancels Showing Of ‘Sicko’ – Move Prompts Criticism, Outcry <read>

Under pressure from the town council to either reschedule or reformat the nature of the screening, the Enfield Public Library decided to cancel its Friday showing of Michael Moore’s 2007 film “Sicko,” which is critical of the U.S. health care industry.

The decision to cancel the showing, which stemmed from a complaint by a resident, has been criticized by the Connecticut Library Association, which called the decision “an insult to our form of government” and said that the library should be a “battleground for ideas.”…

In a press release, the library association applauded the Enfield Public Library for attempting to address health care issues, and asked that the town allow the library to reschedule the movie.

“No one is forced to read a book or see a movie at the library. The residents of Enfield are responsible enough to make choices for themselves and their children,” the release states.

“If politicians in Connecticut cities and towns felt free to remove or cancel showings of materials that they didn’t like or were controversial, the basic freedom of speech rights of town residents would be denied.”

Herman said that while it is still early, the library association is already in talks with the American Civil Liberties Union.

“We’ve had discussions with ACLU Connecticut concering a wide range of things including possible legal action,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s the direction it will go, but as defenders of intellectual freedom, we are very concerned about this.”

Four years ago we were scheduled to show “Hacking Democracy” at a library, as we have done at several libraries for “Hacking Democracy”, other films, and discussions. That one time, local a election official put pressure on the head librarian to cancel the showing and the discussion. To her credit, she never considered canceling the showing. Sadly the official did not take advantage of the opportunity to attend the showing and discussion to provide her prospective – she objected that she would not be paid for attending.

Hats off to the “Constitution State” librarians and the Connecticut Library Association for defending our rights. They have done this before: NPR: Librarians Denounce Gag Order in Patriot Act Case

Update: After much criticsm, Enfield to show variety of films: Rick Green: Why Should Library Have To Do A Balancing Act On ‘Sicko’? <read>

Merrill not sure about ballot reform

We agree that 100% of ballots may be overkill, especially in local municipal elections, primaries, and referendums. We would recommend stronger state laws, procedures, and enforcement.

From Ray Hackett, Norwich Bulletin <read>

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill told municipal leaders this morning that she isn’t sure calls for local communities to provide 100 percent ballots, one for every registered voter, is the appropriate answer to the problem in Bridgeport where election officials ran out of ballots at the last election.

Several bills have already been introduced in the legislature this year that would require communities to have one ballot for every registered voters, an added cost to local communities. Merrill said although she’s not sure that is the best way to go, she added that she is looking at what other states are doing, but offered no clear alternative.

She did suggest, however, that every community should have an “emergency plan” and offered that maybe her office might provide a template of sort so that if a problem arises during an election, there is a uniformed plan in place to deal with it quickly and effectively.

We agree that 100% of ballots may be overkill, especially in local municipal elections, primaries, and referendums. We would recommend stronger state laws, procedures, and enforcement. From the Coalition Recommendations:

Connecticut must do better in the future. This will require appropriate action by election officials and the legislature. At this point we suggest possible components of a comprehensive solution that deserve consideration :

Mandatory formulas for minimum ballot orders. In the wake of the events in Bridgeport, many have suggested a variety of remedies–from printing a number of ballots using formulas based on past history in similar in elections, to at least one ballot for every registered voter in every election. It should be noted that in the November 2010 election, several communities in addition to Bridgeport used emergency photocopied ballots. We recommend that the Secretary of the State work with various stakeholders to develop a mandatory formula to be used by local registrars.

Adoption of emergency plans: It’s important to note that, simply printing more ballots only reduces the chance of the specific problem that occurred in Bridgeport. There are other causes that could result in a municipality having to scramble to photocopy ballots or perform hand counting such as a massive power failure or ballots lost in a fire, flood, or accident shortly before or during Election Day.

Enforceable laws, regulations, and procedures for the monitoring of turn-out to provide sufficient warning of ballot shortages, so that photocopied ballots can be available at polling places in time. For example, many municipalities follow the practice of having polling places report hourly vote counts to the registrars of voters. This practice could be codified to mandate that registrars stay in their offices (not at the polls) on Election Day along with a requirement to report available ballots and turn-out.

Enforceable laws, regulations, and procedures for the creation, security, and accounting for all ballots and for the creation and handling of emergency photocopied ballots….

Update: Meanwhile in Bridgeport, from the Brideport News: Bridgeport to order enough special election ballots for 100% of registered voters <read>

Merrill said she commends Bridgeport’s registrars of voters for leading by example and ordering enough ballots to cover a 100% voter turnout in the 126th General Assembly district.

“As we look at ways to improve our election system in Connecticut following the problems we encountered in the 2010 general election, this is a good, safe rule of thumb to follow to ensure that there are always enough ballots for Connecticut voters, and no one is ever turned away from the polls,” she said. “I encourage other municipalities to take this step.”

Bridgeport to order enough special election ballots for 100% of registered voters

Update: Government Administration and Election Committee Chair, Gayle Slossberg weighs in, via Ken Dixon <read>

“Obviously this is an issue that needs to be resolved,” she said of the Bridgeport meltdown. “We’re trying to draft a reasonable solution to this problem. To require every town to have 100 percent of the ballots is absurd. We’re looking for a reasonable solution, making sure each community has the right amount of ballots.”

Absentee Ballot Fraud In Ohio

Another election, followed, as usual, by reports of absentee vote fraud. This time from Ohio. The good news is that under Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, it was not the Ohio of 2004. It is an Ohio where problems are detected, investigated, and hopefully corrected, prevented, and prosecuted.

Ironton Tribune: Absentee ballot report sent to Husted <read>

About a month before the November general election Lawrence County Board of Election workers noticed a number of applications for absentee ballots going to one of two post office box numbers. When voters apply for an absentee ballot, they are allowed to have the ballot sent to an address other than their home location.

However when election board workers noticed the same post office boxes appearing repeatedly, they did a random check to see where the voters wanted their ballots sent. On most of the calls, the workers found the phones listed on the applications were disconnected. However, those they did get in touch with said they wanted their ballot sent to their home address.

When Brunner learned of that situation, she ordered a special investigation, sending Columbus attorney Andrew Baker on Oct. 20 to the county courthouse to review those applications.

As we have said before, the risks of mail-in voting including no-excuse absentee voting are to great. Such voting should be limited to cases where it is absolutely necessary, as it is now in Connecticut. It also requires strong laws, procedures, and vigilance.

Coalition Report: Bridgeport Recount and Recommendations

Votes were miscounted and miscalculated adding votes to each candidate, but not changing winner in the race for governor

Each candidate for the governor’s race gained votes in the recount when compared to the officially reported results, as follows: Foley (+174), Malloy (+761), and Marsh (+19). These differences parallel candidate shares in the initially reported results. Counting of all ballots in the governor’s race resulted in differences in many counts, totaling 1,520 votes miscounted, of these 1,236 were initially under reported and 284 were initially over reported.

Simply printing more ballots only reduces the chance of the specific problem that occurred in Bridgeport. There are other causes that could result in a municipality having to scramble to photocopy ballots or perform hand counting such as a massive power failure or ballots lost in a fire, flood, or accident shortly before or during Election Day.

Votes were miscounted and miscalculated adding votes to each candidate, but not changing winner in the race for governor

Full report, press release, and supporting details at Coalition site: <read>

Bridgeport Registrar offers fix, Secretary responds

[Republican Registrar of Voters] Borges also said that the Bridgeport registrar’s office is stretched too thin.
[Bysiewicz] feels the Bridgeport office is well-staffed — it spends $551,466 annually, most of that in salaries for two registrars

Fairfield Weekly: Notes from a Scandal <read>

[Republican Registrar of Voters] Borges says he’s faced is a dearth of competent personnel to staff polling places. In the past, polls in Bridgeport have closed when workers didn’t show up, he recalls. He suggests urban registrars partner with corporations to help get quality people at the polls, offering to reward the companies in some fashion. (The only requirement to work at a polling station is being registered to vote.)

The secretary of the state’s office offered its own solution to the problem in 2008 by recruiting 125 students at community colleges, including Housatonic Community College. The average age of poll workers is over 70 and they hoped to attract a younger generation. However, “registrars were reluctant to hire these people,” says Deputy Secretary of the State Lesley Mara, a Democrat, because they were perceived to be in Barack Obama’s camp.

Borges also said that the Bridgeport registrar’s office is stretched too thin. The state’s election laws grant complete control over local elections to municipalities and the decentralized system punishes large, cash-strapped cities, he says. Borges thinks registrars should work directly under the secretary of the state.

“That’s probably not going to happen anytime soon,” says outgoing Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, who adds that she feels the Bridgeport office is well-staffed — it spends $551,466 annually, most of that in salaries for two registrars (one for each major party), two deputy registrars, a secretarial assistant and seasonal employees. Santa Ayala, Borges’ Democratic counterpart who ordered too few ballots for Nov. 2, did not return the Weekly’s calls seeking an interview.

Courant: Legislative Agenda for Voting

We agree that the legislature should give attention to election reform, but should consider carefully the reforms they choose. The history of voting is knee-jerk reactions to problems which bring more of the same. We should tread carefully, but consider a comprehensive solution for elections that might well include regionalization, higher training, qualifications, and civil service election management.

Hartford Courant: Agenda: For The Legislature – The state budget isn’t the only thing needing fixing <read>

Among other things it covers elections and voting:

Elections reforms. Let’s not let embarrassing memories of the Bridgeport vote-counting fiasco dim before taking corrective action in a number of election-related areas: campaign financing, voter turnout and election procedures.

The legislature should consider:

•Ending the Citizens’ Election Program’s subsidy of public money to candidates in uncontested races for the legislature and statewide offices. Giving money to candidates with no opponents is a bad use of public funds when the state faces a projected budget deficit of at least $3.5 billion.

•Taking steps to increase voter turnout — pitifully low during the 2010 primaries — by authorizing no-excuse absentee balloting (a form of early voting) and Election Day registration, once a statewide voter registry is complete. Other forms of early voting, such as by mail, should also be considered.

•Vesting the state with more power to run elections. At the very least — in light of Bridgeport’s unthinkable mistake in failing to buy enough ballots for the November election — the secretary of the state should be formally tasked with making certain that municipalities have enough ballots on hand. State law should decree that towns order an ample number — say, enough for 50 to 75 percent of registered voters — with the state paying for them.

•Ensuring that elections are run competently by requiring that local registrars are trained and certified, like town clerks. One nonpartisan certified registrar in each municipality might be the ideal. Certainly there is no need for one registrar per political party.

We agree that the legislature should give attention to election reform, but should consider carefully the reforms they choose. The history of voting is knee-jerk reactions to problems which bring more of the same. For example the well intended Help America Vote Act (HAVA) hastily passed to solve the problems of Florida in 2000, it brought some good reforms where states chose optical scan voting, along with huge costs and risks for those that chose touch screen voting. Some of the problems we are dealing with are because HAVA insufficiently researched and safe voting technology and the methods required to go with it.

Election reform should be based on solid research and experience, rather than myth. We point out that the latest research refutes the Courant’s claim that no-excuse absentee voting increases turn-out, yet in every election we learn of organized absentee vote fraud. <read> We do support election day registration because that same research demonstrates it does increase turn-out and it has not led to fraud.

We agree that the Secretary of the State should have more power to oversee elections and ballots should be ordered. But we would prefer a rigid minimum formula for ballot orders based on past turn-out in similar elections, with local officials required to follow the formula and allowed to increase the order based on local knowledge. Ordering 50% across the board would be woefully inadequate in many towns who regularly win the Democracy Cup for much higher turn-out, even 75% would not be enough in some. But either would be huge overkill in many referendums and primaries, especially in large cities.

The Courant’s idea of centralized ballot ordering would add considerable work to the Secretary of the State’s Office and should be carefully considered, planned and budgeted before it is implemented, perhaps it may even require Constitutional Amendments to accomplish. Currently ballots are ordered by towns that determine and specify the candidates and hold drawings for candidate positions on the ballot. Since ballots often differ district by district in 800 plus districts spread across 169 towns it would be quite a task for the Secretary of the State to create all orders centrally and anticipate local conditions to estimate ballot counts in a primary in Bridgeport or a referendum in New London.

We would also order caution in changing to a single elected registrar in every town. The courant has been in favor of this idea for some time. <read> Connecticut has little experience in electing non-partisan elected officials. One example is the Probate Court which most agree did not work out. The solution there was a combination of regionalization and increasing qualifications. That might work for elections as well. We note that in this same editorial, the Courant would go further for the Probate Court and make it an appointed office.

More probate reform. Connecticut should also move on to Phase 2 of its bold reform of the ancient probate court system by requiring the appointment, rather than election, of judges of probate. They should be chosen on a merit basis.

Appointment, supported by such respected figures as Hartford Judge of Probate Robert Killian, would remove a huge conflict of interest inherent in the election of judges: campaign contributions from attorneys and others with business in the probate court.

The system has been consolidated and modernized. Now it’s time to protect judges from undue influences.

We should tread carefully, but consider a comprehensive solution for elections that might well include regionalization, higher training, higher qualifications, and civil service election management. We note that probate has noting to do with politics so that electing election officials may be, if anything, more risky that electing probate judges.

Why We Need Audits and Recounts: AccuVote Missed 0.4% of Ballots in Aspen Elections

How do we know that our Dieblod/Premier/Dominion AccuVote-OS voting machines count ballots and votes accurately in each election, in each polling place? Maybe sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

The reason we need paper ballots, audits and recounts is to verify that citizens’ votes are counted accurately. How do we know that our Dieblod/Premier/Dominion AccuVote-OS voting machines count ballots and votes accurately in each election, in each polling place? Maybe sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

In Aspen, Colorado they did not, missing 11 ballots out of 2544. Premier AccuVote Machines Missed 0.4% of Ballots in Aspen Elections <read>

On May 5th 2009, Aspen (CO) held municipal elections for mayor, two city council seats and a ballot measure. Pitkin County’s Premier (formerly Diebold) AccuVote optical scan voting machines failed to register 11 (0.4%) of 2,544 ballots, which was discovered due to the ballots also being counted on Election Day at a central location with a separate system. Premier is one of the three largest providers of voting equipment in the United State…

To underscore the importance of the missing 11 ballots, it is not uncommon for manual recounts of optical scan elections to find new valid votes that were discounted by the optical scan voting machine, either because the machine detected a stray pen mark as an over-vote (voting for more candidates than allowed), or because a voter marked a choice too lightly or outside the designated spot on the ballot, such that the machine detected an under-vote, or skipped race. Such “found” votes are common in manual recounts where humans can recognize a voter’s intent that the optical scan machine could not. In the recent Aspen election, the independent scanning of ballots did indeed allow election officials to find at least one such valid vote missed by the AccuVote voting machines.

However, this problem is unrelated to the discovery that nearly a half percent of ballots – 11 ballot cards in all – went entirely unrecorded by the AccuVote machines. According to Aspen City Clerk Kathryn Koch, both the poll book record of the number of voters who voted and the TrueBallot record of ballots processed agree that there were 2,544 ballots. The AccuVote machines, however only recorded 2,533 ballots

Unfortunately, differences in counts between humans and AccuVote-OS optical scanners in Connecticut audit reports are routinely dismissed as human error rather than potential scanner errors to be investigated. See the Coalition Audit Reports.

This is also why CTVotersCount stands for stronger audits and actual recounts in very close elections in Connecticut. We also are strongly support auditing by machine in Connecticut, with systems like the one used in Aspen by TrueBallot, and others by ClearBallot, and TEVSystems – provided Connecticut implements such systems in ways that are transparent, provide for public verification, and confidence.

Sadly these same ballots are being withheld from public scrutiny to verify this result.

Vote-by-mail cheaper, but advocates have concerns

CTVotersCount is opposed to expansion of main-in-voting including no-excuse absentee voting, primarily for reasons of security and secondarily because it does not deliver on its promise of increased participation. Today we highlight a comprehensive article covering why it tends to be popular and pleasing to election officials in California, but tends to reduce turnout and raises a variety of concerns from advocates.

Today we highlight a comprehensive article covering why vote-by-mail tends to be popular and pleasing to election officials in California, but tends to reduce turnout and raises a variety of concerns from advocates: Cheaper, popular mail-in ballots worry critics <read>

Here are some of the highlights of the article, for those who support expanded mail-in voting for Connecticut, I suggest reading the entire article and considering all the implications:

The increasing shift to vote-by-mail ballots is a positive sign for many election officials. They say it increases voter turnout and is considerably cheaper than the cost counties pay for regular voters. But critics argue the true cost of the system may be higher than reported by its boosters. They also say election officials need to take a closer look at the social costs, such as how the mail-in system affects homeless voter…

Kim Alexander, founder of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit based in Sacramento that encourages voter participation, said that despite its popularity, not enough is known about the effectiveness of mail-in voting. “How many ballots are going out, how many are coming back, how much extra work are they creating for election officials?” Alexander asked.

The vote-by-mail system is supposed to make it easier on election departments by allowing voters to turn in their ballots before Election Day, but a large number of vote-by-mail voters turn in their ballots at the last minute.

In San Francisco, 87,747 ballots were returned before Election Day, and 56,881 were returned on Election Day. In Alameda County, 150,000 vote-by-mail ballots were returned before Election Day and 90,000 on Election Day, according to election officials.

“It takes more time for us to process the ones that come in on Election Day – that just adds to our workload,” said Dave Macdonald, registrar of Alameda County, where the vote-by-mail turnout was more than twice as high as at the polls. “We had a lot of staff after Election Day to process all the vote-by-mail ballots.”…

In a 2005 survey by the California Voter Foundation, 44 percent of non-voters said they were registered to vote – but not at their current address. About one in four said they were eligible but unregistered because they moved around so much that it was difficult to stay registered.

And a report [PDF] published by the Colorado secretary of state found that minorities, young people, singles and divorced people move at significantly above-average rates. Twenty-one percent of people with incomes under $25,000 change residences within one year, compared to 12 percent of people over $100,000. Renters are three times more likely to move.

(UPDATE: A study of vote-by-mail in three California counties found that turnout decreases in presidential and gubernatorial elections but increases in local special elections.)

A Pew Center on the States study [PDF] found that mandatory vote-by-mail systems decrease the odds of someone voting by 13.2 percent, with negative effects on the turnout of urban and minority populations…

“We’re a junk mail society,” he said. “A large percentage of voters don’t realize when it first comes that it’s actually the ballot – especially when every campaign makes it look like the mailers are their official ballots.”

In addition to those hundreds of ballots failing to connect with voters, there’s the issue of vote-by-mail voters – mostly college students in the case of Yolo County – picking up their vote-by-mail ballot from their former residence in a different county and trying to drop it off in Yolo County, where they now live and go to school. Those ballots will not be counted, Stanionis said. And in the Nov. 2 election in his county, there were 58 of those.

Other issues include ballots arriving after Election Day. Out of the 30,000 vote-by-mail ballots in this past Nov. 2 election, the majority were dropped off before Election Day and 4,000 were dropped off on Election Day. But about 1,000 arrived too late.

“Most of those that arrived late are people who put them in a mailbox on Election Day, thinking it was the postmark date,” said Stanionis…

In Riverside County during the June primary, as many as 12,500 ballots arrived too late and were not counted because of communication problems between election officials and the post office, according to news reports. In San Francisco in the June election, a private company that the city’s election department contracted to send out the ballots mailed out thousands of duplicate ballots and ballots with the wrong names.

A current example in Georgia of some absentee ballot fraud allegations: Voting Irregularities Lead To Ten Arrests In South Georgia <read>

Ten people have been arrested in South Georgia following a 5-month investigation into voter fraud. They’re accused of illegally helping people vote by absentee ballot…Those arrested face felony charges for illegally possessing ballots and violating voting procedure. GBI officials say more arrests could be made and more charges filed.