Legislature2013 | CTVotersCount.org

Groundhog Deja Vue for Fax, Email Voting

Now we have it, a redrafted S.B. 647. We do not know who was involved around the table rewriting it, yet what we have is almost an exact copy of the bill Governor Malloy vetoed last year as risky and unconstitutional.

Three decades ago, when I went off for my year in the United States government, an old hand explained to me the nature of the job: it was mostly about fighting bad ideas. And these bad ideas, he went on to explain, were like cockroaches: no matter how many times you flush them down the toilet, they keep coming back.
– Paul Krugman

The Veterans Affairs Committee held hearings on Feb 19th on S.B. 647, An Act Concerning Voting By Members Of the Military Serving Overseas. We testified against the bill which would allow fax and email return of ballots for presumably military serving overseas. The concept is risky, unconstitutional, ineffective, and unnecessary – there are better, more economical alternatives available, proven effective in other states. The Committee talked of working with others to rewrite the bill. Two days later they voted to draft S.B. 647 as a committee bill.

Do not let the bill’s title mislead you. It is not just for the military, it includes all overseas voters(*). It is not just for overseas military and their dependents, it is for any military anywhere, presumably even a national guard member living and working in Connecticut:

any elector who is living, or expects to be living or traveling before and on election day, outside the territorial limits of the several states of the United States and the District of Columbia and any member of the armed forces who is an elector or an applicant for admission as an elector, or the ember’s spouse or dependent if living where such member is stationed…

*Although we are opposed to online, email, and fax voting, we are in favor of treating all overseas voters equally, including military contractors, State Department staff, CIA staff, Peace Corps volunteers, and NGO staff and volunteers.

The problem with Internet voting, in video and in text

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?”

Barbara Simons has a Ted Talk on Internet voting along with an extensive paper, co-authored with Doug Jones.

As they say: “We frequently are asked, ‘If I can bank online, why can’t I vote online?’ The question assumes that online banking is safe and secure. However, banks routinely and quietly replenish funds lost to online fraud in order to maintain public confidence.”

Fax and email voting: Hearing Highlights

With the same success as Rhode Island, perhaps this bill would decrease Connecticut’s failed return rate from 40% to 36.8%.

CT-N has posted the video from the Veterans’ Affairs hearing. About a half-hour to three-quarters of an hour of the four and one-half hour hearing pertained to fax and email voting. Watching the Windows Media Player version, you can see the times and select testimony you would like to watch <video> (click on lower left where it says ‘open in media player’)

Earlier coverage <read>

Overall:

Sadly, CT has a 40% failure return rate according to the Secretary of the State (SOTS)

Here are some highlights:

0:34 Town Clerk of Waterbury for the Town Clerks Assn.

0:41 She discusses risks of fraud

0:44 Sen Slossberg the sponsor

0:51 Rep Alexander, a former Adjutant and Voting Assistance Officer

Describes the risks of Fax on the submission end
(Much worse than I had imagined, also where does
the ballot go after faxing? Would a soldier vote
the way he/she thinks higher ups would want,
assuming they might look?)

1:00 Deputy SOTS James Spallone

Good review of OVF data and security concern

1:10 Senator Slossberg
Has info from all 29 states that do email and fax return that there have never been any problems

1:54 Vet that had return problem

Sen Slossberg asks if he is smart enough to waive rights

1:59 Rhode Island SOS Office

No fraud allegations in all these years

Less risk in RI as they do centrally

53/1700 were sent in email/fax

Note: At 53/1700 sent in for RI, even if all those would not otherwise have been counted, then the return rate would only have been increased by 3.2%, after the system has been available since 1999. With the same success as Rhode Island, perhaps this bill would decrease Connecticut’s failed return rate from 40% to 36.8%.

Testimony: Worse than online voting, fax and email voting

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.

Today we submitted testimony against Senate Bill 647 to the Veterans’ Affairs Committee on a bill to allow email and fax return of votes for Military voters. The bill:

AN ACT CONCERNING VOTING BY MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY SERVING OVERSEAS.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

That sections 9-153e and 9-153f of the general statutes be amended to allow any member of the armed forces who is an elector serving overseas, or the member’s spouse or dependent if living where such member is stationed, to return their absentee ballot by electronic mail or facsimile.

Statement of Purpose:

To allow military persons serving overseas to return their ballot by electronic mail or facsimile.

From our testimony:

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.

Compared with Online voting email and fax voting is a riskier, cheaper alternative:

Email and Fax Voting Is More Risky Than Online Voting:

Every week we hear of the compromise of email, databases, and severs maintained by large businesses and government agencies.

We are all familiar with emails and faxes, we send or are sent to us, never being received. All network communications are subject to interception, substitution, or deletion. Military voters and registrars are not exempt from these problems.

· President Obama has called the protection of government and private information and communications networks “one of the most serious … security challenges of the 21st century,” (Hartford Courant May 30, 2009.)

Registrars Are Not Equipped To Implement Email Or Fax Voting:

Currently some towns do not provide Internet to their registrars and some do not provide email.

Frequently, published email addresses for registrars are out of date.

To whom would soldiers email votes? The Democratic or Republican Registrar? To a common email account? Who will process that? How can anyone be sure ballots that successfully arrive at an email account are not dropped or changed?

Who manages the Fax? Who can see or discard the ballots that come via the Fax?

We quote Governor Malloy’s veto message on the Constitutionality of a similar bill last year:

I agree with Secretary of the State Denise Merrill that this provision raises a number of serious concerns. First, as a matter of policy, I do not support any mechanism of voting that would require an individual to waive his or her constitutional rights in order to cast a timely, secret ballot, even if such waiver is voluntary. Second, as the Secretary of the State has pointed out, allowing an individual to email or fax an absentee ballot has not been proven to be secure. In 2011, the United States Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, issued a report on remote electronic voting. The report concluded that remote electronic voting is fraught with problems associated with software bugs and potential attacks through malicious software, difficulties with voter authentication, and lack of protocol for ballot accountability.

We will be disappointed, but not surprised if the Veterans’ Affairs Committee ignores the discriminatory nature of this proposal, as we said:

This Bill Is Discriminatory: Many overseas voters are veterans but not members of the Military. Some serve in remote areas or challenging conditions. Including: State Department, CIA, and NGO staffs, plus Military Contractors, and Peace Corps volunteers.

And Unnecessary:

This Bill Is Unnecessary: Conventional solutions for effective, safe, and economical Military voting are available and proven. The state with the best results for overseas voting, Minnesota, does not use online voting. Let’s emulate their example.

Among others, we were joined in opposition testimony by Verified Voting:

OPPOSITION TO BILL NO. 647 – Understanding that email and fax voting are forms of internet voting – in fact they are the least secure forms. We dishonor our military by providing them insecure means to vote.
Chairs Leone and Hennessy and Members of the Committee, Verified Voting works tirelessly around the country and in Washington D.C. to support expanded opportunities for our military personnel to vote.However we oppose Bill No. 647 because it would dishonor our military personnel with an insecure means to vote. Email and fax voting are internet voting and are not secure. Those serving to secure our democracy should not be provided an unequally insecure means to participate in that democracy. That is what 647 would do.

Verified Voting was a strong supporter of the federal MOVE Act, passed in October 2009. The MOVE Act continued to show excellent gains in voter enfranchisement amongst military personnel in the 2012 General Election. We are members of the Alliance for Military and Overseas Voting Rights (AMOVR), where we join many military personnel support colleagues to work on their behalf year round.
We take support for military voting seriously and oppose 647 on strict empirical grounds of insecurity.
We strongly recommend against allowing ballots to be cast over the internet, via email, internet?based fax, or through internet portals. Online voting presents a direct threat to the integrity of elections in Connecticut, because it is not sufficiently secure against fraud or malfunction. Cyber security experts with the Department of Homeland Security have publicly warned against internet voting…

Allowing ballots to be cast by email, internet?based fax, or through internet portals ? at least with the current security tools ? is an invitation to partisan operatives and nation?states to tamper with the integrity of our elections. The problem is particularly pernicious because it is unlikely that such attacks will be detected. Attacks on consumer and business bank accounts can be detected because the accounting systems are reviewed by multiple parties and auditable records exist. Bank statements, unlike our voted ballots, are not anonymous. This makes it critical that the physical ballot which the voter inspected is returned for counting. If a purely electronic form is transmitted, that unsecured vote is not verifiable by the voter and does not constitute an auditable record of the vote.

Also see CTNewsJunkie coverage of Sen Slossberg and Rep Morin’s press conference, surrounded by veterans and the Rhode Island Secretary of State. The article includes some of our testimony and a veteran apparently unaware of the free express mail return of voted ballots <read>

Testimony: Polling Place Posting, Enforcement, Early Voting, and Internet Voting

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.

Yesterday, in the midst of the gun control hearings drawing a couple thousand, we spent an hour and a half 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.

H.B. 5600, generically titled “AN ACT CONCERNING THE REGISTRARS OF VOTERS” dealt with three items:

Requiring towns to provide Internet access for all Registrars of Voters
Requiring the posting of voter ID requirements at all polling places
Increasing the authority of the Secretary of the State by making procedures and directives enforceable by the State Elections and Enforcement Comission

We testified in favor of all three concepts. <testimony>.

Hard to imagine it, yet some towns do not provide Internet access in this day and age, even with it is available town staff.
Posting voter ID requirements is to provide uniformity such that voters are not illegally turned away or illegally allowed to vote. I suggested that lists of registered write-in candidates should also be posted.
In general we welcome more enforcement, yet the text of the proposed bill is in some areas two broad and in others too narrow. I also needs some further work to assure clarity and transparency. (Read the testimony)

H.J. 16 is the Constitutional Amendment from last year that needs to be approved again by this Legislature and then Connecticut voters in 2014 “RESOLUTION APPROVING AN AMENDMENT TO THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO GRANT INCREASED AUTHORITY TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGARDING ELECTION ADMINISTRATION.”

The amendment would allow the Legislature to specify early voting such as in-person early voting or no-excuse absentee voting. We assumed, incorrectly, that there would be little discussion and that major debates would occur in 2015 if the amendment passes.

Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, made a brief statement summarizing and supporting the bill which lead to perhaps forty-five minutes of pro and con questioning by the Committee, which also included questions on the largely unrelated topic of Internet voting for the Military. Others added testimony on the bill as well.

Scrapping most of my prepared remarks, I dedicated about half of my allocated three minutes to H.J. 16 and Internet voting. I provided the committee with information on the risks, costs, and value of various early voting methods, Internet voting, and how Connecticut might best serve all Overseas voters, including the Military.

The Committee was very attentive and open to considering my testimony: <testimony>

Especially the sources of the information that all forms of early voting decrease turnout. I promised to followup with links to the references.
I suggested following the example of Minnesota which had the greatest success in serving overseas voters, without risky, expensive, and ineffective Internet voting.
I reaffirmed my support of polling place Election Day Registration (EDR), its potential to increase turnout, while also reaffirming my prediction of disappointing results and concerns for very long lines.

Update: CT-N video, my testimony is about 75% of the way in <watch>

OP-ED: Voting Requires Vigilance. Popular Isn’t Always Prudent

Our Op-Ed published yesterday by CTNewsJunkie, outlining the integrity risks of the National Popular Vote Compact, now being considered by the Connecticut Legislature, for the fourth time since 2007.

Our Op-Ed published yesterday by CTNewsJunkie, outlining the integrity risks of the National Popular Vote Compact, now being considered by the Connecticut Legislature, for the fourth time since 2007: Voting Requires Vigilance. Popular Isn’t Always Prudent <read>

by Luther Weeks | Jan 21, 2013 7:16pm
Posted to: Opinion

One third of Americans vote on machines, without the paper ballots we use in Connecticut. Our president is chosen based on faith in those unverifiable machines, vote accounting, and unequal enfranchisement in 50 independent states and the District of Columbia.

In 2000, we witnessed the precarious underpinnings of this state-by-state voting system combined with the flawed mechanism of the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Accounting Act. The Supreme Court ruled votes could not be recounted in Florida, because even that single state did not have uniform recount procedures. What could possibly make this system riskier?

The National Popular Vote Compact now being considered in states, including Connecticut, would have such states award their electoral votes to a purported national popular vote winner. The Compact would take effect once enough states signed on, equaling more than one-half the Electoral College. Then the President elected would be the one with the most purported popular votes. Sounds good and fair at first glance. Looking at the touted benefits and none of the risks many legislators, advocates, and media influence the public to make the Compact popular in some polls. Popular is not always prudent. Voting requires vigilance.

The Compact, cobbled on an already precarious system, would exacerbate its flaws, adding additional risks. Currently errors, voter suppression, and fraud can only sway the result in the few swing states. With the Compact errors, suppression, and fraud in every state would count toward the popular vote total.

Compact supporters overlook and proponents befog the reality that there would be no official national popular vote total available in time for states to choose their electors. The only official popular vote total is the sum of the Certificates of Attainment sent by each state to the national Archivist. They cannot be used for choosing electors, since certificates are not required to be sent until seven days after electors are chosen and are not required to arrive in Washington until fifteen days after the electors must be chosen. Supreme Court decisions in 2000 and 1876 stress that these dates must be strictly followed.

Even if the totals could be obtained in time from each state, they would not be audited and could not be recounted. Compact proponents obfuscate this by describing how some states routinely perform audits or recounts. They conveniently ignore that about one-third of the states do not have audits and recounts; many voting machines cannot be audited; state recounts are based on close-vote margins within a state, so even in those states, recounts would not be triggered by a close national vote. Just as critical, there would be insufficient time for recounts or audits given the strict Constitutional deadlines. The Supreme Court would likely reject any recount going beyond state borders, using the same reasoning used to reject the 2000 Florida recount, as insufficiently uniform.

Additional legal challenges and maneuvers under the Compact would also be available for partisans bent on sending any reasonably close election to the Supreme Court or Congress. States not signing the Compact could delay certifying and transmitting results until the latest deadline. Partisans could dispute results in their states or sue their Secretary of State for using uncertified results from other states, delaying reporting or negating the state’s Electoral College vote.

Nothing is available, but legal challenges, even in Compact states, to deter a future partisan Secretary of State from failing to follow the Compact.

Supporters and opponents debate other contentions for and against the Compact, most of which are subjective and speculative. e.g. Which is more ideal, the current Federal system or the popular vote? Would small states or large states benefit more from the Compact? Where would candidates campaign and join with PACs in media buys? How equal would every voter actually be, given the state-by-state system of voter enfranchisement, disenfranchisement, suppression, and registration?

An accurate, fair, and credible popular vote requires a uniform, workable national voting system we can trust. That is, a system with uniform enfranchisement, paper ballots, effective audits, and national recounts, enforceable and provably enforced as a prerequisite to a considering a national popular vote.

Luther Weeks is executive director of CTVotersCount.

Others Weigh In On Election Reforms

Last week Secretary of the State Denise Merrill weighed in at her press conference on, as the Courant headlines, how “Reforms Could Boost Voter Participation”. Also weighing in was Melissa J. Russell, President of ROVAC (Registrars Of Voters Association, Connecticut).

Last week Secretary of the State Denise Merrill weighed in at her press conference on as the Courant headlines, how Reforms Could Boost Voter Participation <read> <press release>.

Merrill noted that four of the states with better voter turnout than Connecticut last month — Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Maine — all allow voters to register on election day. Beginning in Nov., 2013, Connecticut voters will be able to do so as well.

Early voting, voting by mail and no-excuse absentee voting would also boost turnout as well as reducing wait times at polling places on election day, Merrill said.

By our references Connecticut ranked 16th and 17th in voter turnout in 2008 and 2010. This year we ranked 7th – much more than respectable in gains and in absolute rank, especially considering Hurricane Sandy! In fact, Connecticut ranked ahead of many states with early voting and long lines such as Ohio and Florida, not to mention 7 of eleven states with Election Day Registration. We reiterate several themes we have discussed previously:

According to statistical analysis and a summary by Doug Chapin at the Secretary’s Election Performance Task Force, which she attended: Early voting, by mail or in-person tends to decrease turnout. In other states, Election Day Registration has increased turnout and mitigated the negative effects of early voting on turnout.
Early voting in person can increase convenience, but would be costly to implement, especailly in Connecticut with our independent 169 town voting system. Seven days of early voting would increase election day costs for such towns by close to a factor of 7.
Early voting in person can have high integrity, if we are willing to pay for extra security when elections are closed each day.
There are better solutions than early voting for long lines on election day. Our scanners can handle thousands of ballots, yet problems this year were caused by a shortage of checkin lines. Each additional line requires one extra official and perhaps a few more privacy booths – much more economical than in person early voting. And it works! Early voting is no panacea – see FL and OH – and during the last two elections storms hit during the likely early voting period, lessening its probable value.
Increase mail in voting increases the risk of documented fraud. Mail-in or absentee voting seems to be the source of the easiest and most frequent fraud in U.S. Elections.
We support Election Day Registration, but point out that the method chosen for Connecticut is not like the successful methods of other states which increased turnout, and is likely to lead to long lines.

Also weighing in was Melissa J. Russell, President of ROVAC (Registrars Of Voters Association, Connecticut), where she “looks forward to working closely with the Board and the Committee chairs to improve the professionalization of ROVAC” Op-Ed: Registrars are continually working to improve elections system <read>

We would hope that the ROVAC President, Board, and Committee chairs will not only strive to become more professional, but also to work cooperatively with the Secretary of the State, her office, legislatures, and advocates in improving our election system.

The word “archaic” has been bandied about, along with censure of the long lines voters faced in West Hartford, Hartford and Manchester. In many of these stories, the registrars of voters across the state are taking the brunt of this criticism.

It is unfortunate that the “other side” of the story is not being told. In the vast majority of polling places in the vast majority of towns, the election went smoothly, with fast moving lines, cheerful service to the voters on the part of the poll workers, and swift reporting of results at the end of the night. Large cities such as Bridgeport, Stamford and Norwalk handled the large turnout of voters with no major problems.

Here we agree that by and large most voters, in most towns, voters were well served. Registrars deserve credit along with courteous dedicated poll workers and the Secretary of the State. We can be proud of selecting economical, paper based optical scanners for our elections, and the push from the Secretary to purchase enough ballots to avoid another Bridgeport. Perhaps the shortage of checkin lines and enough staffing for Election Day Registration will be solved to avoid repeated problems of polling place lines, and now problems similar to those experienced for Presidential balloting.

We applaud ROVAC’s endorsement of electronic checkin also championed by many beyond ROVAC. We wonder if they will endorse and lobby their municipalities to pay for it along with the associated internet connectivity required to reach its full potential. We have often heard registrars complain of tight and reduced budges, unable to cover small obviously needed supplies, such as laptops to calculate audit results, a far cry from the requirements of automated checkin.

It is also unfortunate that the “archaic” system is being blamed on the registrars and their poll workers. The Registrars of Voters Association of Connecticut (ROVAC) educates registrars all over the state, both at statewide conferences held twice a year, and in county meetings held three to four times a year. Consider some of the improvements that registrars are currently using and developing in their towns: the use of Skype to communicate with various polling places in the cities, leaving phone lines open for the public; the use and development of electronic check-in books, where a voter is checked in not on a paper list of many pages, but with several clicks of a mouse on a laptop, or the scanning of a barcode next to a voter’s name; and a post-election audit system that uses high-speed scanners rather than teams of people hand inspecting and counting ballots.

ROVAC also supports the use of technology that is already available for our current tabulator system to report results: using either the ports on the back of our tabulators to send results to the secretary of the state’s office instantly, or placing the memory cards that each tabulator houses into an “ender machine” that will read the information on the card and send it electronically to the secretary of the state.

Such use of this technology, which is used in other states without problems, would speed up the reporting of the election results tremendously, while virtually eliminating the mistakes that come from bleary-eyed election workers attempting to read and accurately record numbers by hand onto a Head Moderator’s Return, which then gets faxed to the secretary of the state’s office.

Here we have a couple problems. First, opening the ports is one of the more dangerous options for our election equipment, endorsed by UConn and eliminated by the previous Secretary of the State. Moving the card to an ender machine, would still expose the card and data to security risks. And this will not do the job. Those bleary eyed workers still need to submit the additional information by hand, such as hand counted regular ballots, write-in votes, and various special ballots that cannot be scanned.

We do support auditing by appropriate independent machines, with proven processes that are combined with transparent procedures that can verify the results to the public. We are concerned that instead, we will end up replacing one black-box with another black-box system that is insufficient, and completely voids the potential value at considerable cost. We would hope that ROVAC, the Secretary of the State, CTVotersCount, and other advocates get the opportunity to work together to propose legislation, test, and implement a system that provides better audits, while finding ways to pay for the valuable provided.

Conflict of interest generates knee-jerk call for election reform

As we have said before in several ways, modernization and solving election problems in Connecticut will be almost impossible to achieve within the existing system of 338+ local registrars, many of whom are very very part time. The comprehensive solution is to “Do for Elections what we have done for Probate”. Consolidation, Professionalization, and Regionalization. Not a panacea, but in our opinion a prerequisite.

Press release: Mayor Segarra & Hartford Legislators Call For Election Reform – Registrar of Voters Primary Raises Concerns <read>

This year in Hartford, there is a primary for one of the offices of Registrar of Voters. By the law the current party registrar is responsible for conducting primary elections for their own party. But that naturally creates a conflict of interest when the sitting registrar is also a candidate. This happens quite frequently in Connecticut and is not the only conflict. There can be a conflict when the registrar as a party member and usually a Town Committee member has taken a vote or a position for a particular candidate. Or as happened in Hartford in 2010, the registrar is on a slate for a Town Committee election. A registrar could also be a candidate for higher office and is often the spouse or close relative of a candidate. The list of potential conflicts is almost endless.

Shortsighted, stop gap solutions:

The two failed bills referenced in the press release are stop gaps. One would only apply to large city Town Committee elections. The other would only apply to elections for Registrar of Voters. We also do not like the idea of the Secretary of the State appointing the replacement registrar, that could create an appearance of a conflict of interest and the Secretary may not be that familiar with local individuals qualified and conflict-free to assume the duties. And in Hartford and occasionally other towns we have a third-party registrar candidate running with the sitting registrars administering the election. From the 1st bill:

That title 9 of the general statutes be amended to require (1) a registrar of voters who is a candidate in a primary or at an election, for the office of registrar of voters, to recuse himself or herself from official duties relating to such primary or election, and (2) the Secretary of the State to appoint a person to assume such duties during such period.

Every even year election, the registrars are candidates so they both would be replaced, for half of the elections! Where would 338+ qualified candidates be found? Especially if the state mandated certification of Registrars of Voters is ever materialized? Remember in most primaries and all elections there are multiple contests, it might be difficult to define fairly segregate the duties associated with one contest from the others.

A Comprehensive Solution

As we have said before in several ways, modernization and solving election problems in Connecticut will be almost impossible to achieve within the existing system of 338+ local registrars, many of whom are very very part time. The comprehensive solution is to “Do for Elections what we have done for Probate“. Consolidation, Professionalization, and Regionalization. Not a panacea, but in our opinion a prerequisite.