Category: CT

Connecticut follows MOVE Act, avoids flaws – Others follow the money

We offer our complements to Secretary Bysiewicz, the Town Clerks, Legislators who supported the MOVE Act, Connecticut, the many other states and officials who are implementing the MOVE Act with integrity. But there is big money and momentum behind efforts in other states to exploit flaws in the Act.

Press Release from Secretary of the State, 10/13/2010: <read>

BYSIEWICZ: CONNECTICUT SUCCESSFULLY
IMPLEMENTING FEDERAL MOVE ACT TO
IMPROVE ABSENTEE BALLOTING FOR
OVERSEAS MILITARY VOTERS
SECRETARY OF THE STATE, CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION CONGRATULATE
CONNECTICUT TOWN CLERKS FOR IMPLEMENTING NEW FEDERAL DEADLINE
TO SEND GENERAL ELECTION ABSENTEE BALLOTS ELECTRONICALLY

HARTFORD: Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and several members of Connecticut’s
Congressional delegation reported today that all of Connecticut’s cities and towns have
implemented the requirements of the federal Military Overseas Voter Empowerment
(MOVE) Act and have provided absentee ballots by mail or electronically to members of
the military serving overseas, depending on their stated preference. The office of
Secretary of the State Bysiewicz surveyed municipal clerks in all 169 Connecticut cities
and towns to ensure proper implementation of the new law. This survey was conducted
following the federally mandated deadline of September 18th to send ballots by mail, fax
or email to all registered voters currently overseas or in military who applied for them.

We particularly appreciate the statement from the President of the Town Clerks Association, we expect no less from all officials:

Joseph Camposeo, Town Clerk of Manchester and President of the Connecticut Town
Clerks Association, said, “The Town Clerks of Connecticut are committed to working at
the highest level of integrity for their customers and citizens. The record clearly shows
that this commitment applies to the military absentee ballot process as well. I am proud
of our effort made by the Connecticut town clerks and trust that this manner of
compliance and efficiency will continue.”

We offer our complements to Secretary Bysiewicz, the Town Clerks, and Legislators who supported the MOVE Act, along with the many other states and officials who are implementing the MOVE Act with integrity.

We support most of the MOVE Act, yet have been constant critics of one part of the Act which provides for pilot projects for Internet voting for Military and Overseas voters. However, we have been a supporter of Connecticut’s implementation and decision to avoid the Internet voting bandwagon. We have suggested ways in which Connecticut could easily follow the lead of other states and do even better for our military and overseas voters.

We also complement Representative Rush Holt, a MOVE Act and voting integrity advocate, who  supported the Act without realizing it had the dangerous Internet voting provisions, listened to our criticism, offered corrective legislation, and pointed out the risks of Internet voting to the New York Times.

Big money and momentum behind efforts in other states to exploit flaws in the Act:

Hopefully, Internet Voting Will be banned before it costs an election. The recent Washington D.C. public test clearly demonstrated that the years of warnings by computer scientists, security experts, and advocates were fully justified. A new article from TruthOut is a very readable summary of the concerns and the continuing tendency to ignore those concerns by some election officials:  Computer Scientists, Election Integrity Advocates Question Feasibility of “Digital Democracy”. It is also the first article we have seen that effectively covers the money interests behind Internet voting. <read>

Despite the recent hack during public testing of DC’s Internet voting pilot and the rash of other security problems that have plagued the short history of online voting systems, elections entrepreneurs, along with some state officials and voter advocates, continue to make headway as they push for the adoption of i-voting technology. The practice – and the private voting systems industry that appears poised for more widespread adoption – has found an inroad via military and overseas voters…

The argument for technology as a tool to boost participation has already proven successful in paving the way for scandal-ridden DREs (direct-recording electronic voting machines), which were billed as the key to accessibility for voters with blindness and other disabilities. After the 2000 election, “The whole discussion really got hijacked by folks who wanted to go with e-voting for whatever reason and they basically used blind people to do it,” said journalist and blogger Brad Friedman…

Some advocates for military and overseas voters share Friedman’s skepticism. “Money and fame are real drivers, even in the election world,” wrote Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) President and CEO Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat in an email to Truthout from her base in Munich. “There are vendors who will make a lot of money, or potentially hope to make a lot of money and become celebrated in their circle, by pushing this right now.”

The Department of Defense (DoD) declined to release the dollar amounts of the contract awards granted to the six vendors – Scytl, Everyone Counts, Konnech, Aquiline, Vexcel Corporation and Credence Management Solutions – citing two exceptions to federal acquisition regulations, one of which applies as long as a single contract is not expected to exceed $100,000. The DoD awarded 20 contracts for the project…

We recommend reading the entire article.

Update: Time Magazine covers the story in a bit less depth, yet misses the money issue: Will Online Voting Turn Into an Election Day Debacle? <read>

Video: The Real Story: Jerry Farrell, SOTS Candidate

“Two key things the next Secretary must solve”:

  • Voting for the disabled
  • Military Voting – getting the ballot back in time

Secretary of the State candidate Jerry Farrell was interviewed on Fox News, The Real Story <video>

For a while I thought we would never get to elections, but the interviewer did bring them up near the end. Overall a good introduction to Jerry and his qualifications. All open-ended, softball questions. Hopefully other candidates will be given the same opportunity to showcase their qualificatons.

“Two key things the next Secretary must solve”:

  • Voting for the disabled
  • Military Voting – getting the ballot back in time

Product Liability: It is not just for consumers

The opportunity is for Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in states harmed by poor products to take advantages of documented defects like those uncovered by UConn, learn of those defects based on studying submissions required by California’s law, and aggressively following Ohio’s example of redress.

Consumers can study product quality by reading Consumer Reports. When products do no perform as advertised we can recover damages under tort law, class action suits, or occasionally rely on actions by consumer protection agencies or state attorney’s general. Similar actions options are open to election officials when voting equipment proves problematic or fails to perform intended functions.

Two years ago in the Outsourced State, we discussed the Voters Unite report, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections. Two recent developments in Ohio and California show the way aggressive election officials could obtain redress for  election equipment inadequacies like those recently documented by the University of Connecticut (UConn).

Product Defect Example
Recall that memory card failures have plagued our Diebold/ES&S/Dominion AccuVote-OS optical scanners for several years. Depending on the study somewhere between 5% and over 10% of memory cards are completely unreadable when subject to pre-election testing. After years of problems reported in Florida and Connecticut (Presumably occurring but not reported in other states that also use the AccuVote-OS, such as other New England states), UConn recently released a report that a major component of the problem is a product design flaw: The battery test is not able to detect those with low power remaining. Thus when memory cards are tested before each election, the test fails to detect many cards that cannot make it through the election.

An Aggressive Secretary of State Shows The Way
Led by Secretary of State, Jennifer Brenner, Ohio recently won a settlement with Diebold over a software error that caused problems in the 2008 election. <read>

The settlement (PDF) is the result of contract claims made in a lawsuit filed by Secretary Brunner in 2008 regarding problems some counties had encountered with their Premier voting systems. It comes after months of negotiations that involved the Secretary of State’s office, 47 counties that use Premier equipment, and Premier Election Solutions, Diebold, Inc., and Data Information Management Systems, Inc. (a separate company that markets and services voter registration systems to various Ohio counties.)

Among the highlights of the settlement for counties who decide to participate:

  • A total $470,424 of one-time payments to the 47 counties using Premier voting equipment.
  • At the option of each county using Premier voting equipment, up to $2.4 million worth of free software licensing for the voting machines for two years.
  • Each Premier county is eligible to receive free, new AccuVote TSX DRE voting machines equal to up to 15 percent of the number of machines the county already has – which adds up to a potential 2,909 free voting machines for the counties.
  • A 50 percent discount in maintenance fees if a county chooses continuing voting system maintenance from Premier.
  • A 50 percent discount for new generation precinct-based optical scan voting machines, if a county chooses to switch from an electronic touch screen voting system to a paper ballot optical scan voting system.
  • County boards of elections are not bound by the settlement to select Premier as their vendor for services, and they retain the right to negotiate with other vendors who offer certified voting equipment in Ohio, even if they accept the county’s one-time payment from Premier.

New California Law Destined To Help
Led by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, California recently passed a law that is destined to discourage vendors from hiding defects in their systems and to publicize such defects to other states <read>

“Reliable voting systems are critical to a successful democracy, but also to people’s confidence in the electoral process,” said Secretary Bowen, who sponsored similar legislation that the Governor vetoed last year. “Companies that make cars, toys and thousands of other products have to report product flaws and even issue recalls of seriously troubled items. There is no reason that the same philosophy of transparency should not apply to the voting equipment on which millions of Californians rely to record and tally their votes.”…

Beginning January 1, voting system vendors and ballot manufacturers will be required to notify the California Secretary of State, in writing, of every known problem in their respective systems. In turn, the Secretary of State is required to submit a report of all disclosed problems to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), making it possible for voters and elections officials in all states to benefit from California’s transparency. Companies may be liable for civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation for failing to disclose known product flaws…

In recent years, undisclosed defects with voting or ballot systems came to light only after incidents in Humboldt, San Francisco, Sutter, Calaveras and Yolo Counties. Errors were caught by government officials or election observers, and no election results were compromised. “Voters have to put their faith in a voting system every time they cast ballots,” added Bowen. “This new law helps ensure that faith need not be blind.”

The Brennan Center for Justice recently recommended a similar solution national database, Voting System Failures: A Database Solution, as discussed on NPR. Perhaps California’s law will accomplish most of the same objectives, starting sooner.

The opportunity is for Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in states harmed by poor products to take advantages of documented defects like those uncovered by UConn, learn of those defects based on studying submissions required by California’s law, and aggressively following Ohio’s example of redress.

A Tale In Three Ballots

Now that Connecticut voters are used to optical scan ballots, perhaps it is time to revisit ballot design in the “land of steady habits”. Perhaps one of those habits could be continuous improvement! We hear a lot about increasing participation in elections. Creating a better ballot can increase the number of voters willing to vote, and their satisfaction with the process.

Bo Lipari published his testimony on the recent New York Primary <read>

It is all interesting reading. I find two points of particular interest.  Bo’s comments on how excessive problems were attributed to the optical scanners and on the limitations of New York’s full face ballot requirement, that is not all that different from Connecticut’s:

media reports too often implied that all problems were machine problems, but in fact while some voting machines certainly did fail to perform as expected, these reports were in the minority. By far the largest number of problem reports were administrative and legislative issue…

Hard to Read Ballots – The single most common complaint was ballots that were difficult to read. Let me be perfectly clear – ballot problem reports are not a machine problem, they are a political problem. New York Election Law requires the full face ballot, a grid layout where all candidates in all races are traditionally presented on a single page. Further, all candidates from the same party must appear in a single row or column. These and other requirements, like the confusing but obligatory party icon displayed in each box (which is all too easy to confuse with the fill-in oval), leave no choice but to use lettering far too small to be legible for far too many voters.

In the past, New York’s Legislature has not been inclined to eliminate the full face ballot despite calls to do so from civic groups. Truth be told, the full face ballot layout reinforces straight party line voting-it’s easy and natural to go straight down or across the party line filling in boxes, and so political parties tend to favor it. The full face ballot is a holdover from the days of lever machines and like those machines, it’s time has passed. New York’s current ballot design is a usability nightmare for voters. The grid layout is unclear and confusing; the small boxes are filled with unnecessary symbols; the typeface is far too small to be readable. Far better ballot designs are not just possible, they are necessary. I call on the Legislature to change New York State Election law and abolish the full face ballot requirement at the start of the new session.

The recent primary clearly demonstrated that New York voters desperately need a new, usable ballot design. Senators, you are the ones with the power, and the responsibility, to accomplish it.

I have been meaning to bring up ballot design for a while.  This is a good time with Bo’s excellent introduction to the subject.

Look at a sample Connecticut ballot it is in a grid just like a lever machine, one line per party and boxes for each candidate.  To most Connecticut voters this has been the way it has always been – the only way it can be. Most of us are clueless to other designs except for a vague understanding that in Florida in 2000 there was something worse called a “butterfly ballot” and something we nutmeggers understand how to read, not at all, the “punchcard ballot.”

What could possibly be better or worse than our familiar ballot?

Lets start with worse. New York’s ballots are similar to ours, but they require a complete full face ballot, with all the questions, offices, and candidates on one side of one page. In Connecticut we can use multiple sides and multiple pages for complex elections.  It gets worse, New York City requires candidate names in four languages and a party symbol in each box, take a look at a sample NY City Ballot courtesy of the NY League Of Women Voters. Part of which is below:

Now lets explore better. Another way of creating a ballot in other states is the so called, not partisan ballot, with each race getting a separate box on the ballot and the candidates listed with their party but without a party line.  Voters have to work a bit harder if they want to vote strictly along party lines and hopefully think a bit more about individual candidates and races. Here is an example from Minnesota.

Now that Connecticut voters are used to optical scan ballots, perhaps it is time to revisit ballot design in the “land of steady habits”. Perhaps one of those habits could be continuous improvement! We hear a lot about increasing participation in elections. Creating a better ballot might well increase the number of voters willing to vote, and their satisfaction with the process.

There is more to it than simply changing laws, and moving names and boxes around. The Brennan Center for Justice has a report, Better Ballots, discussing extensive ballot design considerations including usability testing – actually testing to see how well voters understand the ballot! Take a look at page 23 of their report to see a before and after example of a ballot similar to Minnesota’s. <Brennan Center Report>

LWVCT: Voters Guide to Secretary of the State Candidates

Would you support legislation and funding to require post-election audits to be conducted by others than the same local officials who conducted the local election?

The League of Women Voters have published a guide to the Secretary of the State Candidates, listing their qualifications and their responses to two questions <read>

Jerry Farrell, Jr.
The Secretary of the State and local registrars of voters are responsible for both running our elections and conducting post-election audits of our voting machines. Would you support legislation and funding to require post-election audits to be conducted by others than the same local officials who conducted the local election? Please explain.

I do believe that there are improvements that can be made in the post-election audits that would enhance the credibility of the election process. It will be my responsibility to ensure that our elections are open and fair. I support having “outside auditors” as part of the post-election audit, as it would add to the transparency and legitimacy of both the audit and the election itself. I do believe that we need to approach the idea in a way that does not add to the financial burdens and mandates that municipal and state governments are facing.

Denise Wright Merrill
The Secretary of the State and local registrars of voters are responsible for both running our elections and conducting post-election audits of our voting machines. Would you support legislation and funding to require post-election audits to be conducted by others than the same local officials who conducted the local election? Please explain.

There is no greater mandate than to ensure elections are fair, open and accountable. The Secretary of the State randomly selects precincts to be audited and audits are open to the public. This provides accountability.

I believe that post-election audits should include third party review. I would work with the coalition that proposed these solutions to determine whether this could be achieved in a cost-effective manner. I would also review other recommendations made by the coalition such as requiring best practices and consistent procedures for post-election audits and propose legislation to conform our laws to those practices.

No responses were received from other candidates on the ballot.

Hartford Courant joins in fighting last [election] war

Clearly we got one thing right last month, when we said June primaries are a “Sure media winner”. If the primaries are moved to June we will reference this post when complaints are made that the campaign season is too long or to have the Legislature pay more attention to business in the 1st quarter of an election year.

In an editorial today, the Hartford Courant joins Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, in moving primary elections to June, unlimited absentee voting, and election day registration: How To Turn Up Voter Turnout – An Earlier Primary . . . . . . And two other reforms should boost interest in elections <read>

Ms. Bysiewicz is right. The Aug. 10 turnout — even with some competitive contests between strong candidates — was sickly. Fewer than one in four Democrats reported to the polls, and fewer than one in three Republicans voted.

She suggests the election calendar be changed to make the primary in June, “while children are still in school and parents are more tuned in to news and public affairs before we all go into summer vacation mode.” A June primary makes sense as long as the party conventions — whose main business is to endorse candidates — are moved back in the calendar as well — to, say, March. Keeping the conventions in late May and moving the primary elections to the first half of June would give party-endorsed candidates an even greater advantage than they now have.

The secretary of the state’s other two ideas are so-called “no-excuse” absentee balloting and Election Day registration. Both of those have resulted in increased voter turnout in states that have adopted them.

No-excuse absentee balloting is a form of early voting. It should work in Connecticut so long as political operatives are prohibited from distributing absentee ballot applications and strong-arming vulnerable residents — the elderly or incapacitated, for example — into voting for the operatives’ choices.

As CTVotersCount readers know we conditionally support Election Day Registration (EDR) – conditioned on an implementation that supports voting integrity along with voter convenience – providing election day registration in each polling place followed by the same voting methods used by other voters, as is the case in all but one of the apparently successful EDR states.

We are opposed to the expansion of all forms of mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting. Abuses of absentee voting have occurred in Connecticut and occur on a larger scale in other states with significant levels of absentee voting – it is not worth the risk.  Even the Courant Editorial recognizes the risks adds conditions to its endorsement. We remain opposed given the track record here and elsewhere <ref> <ref>.  According to the Courant:

Absentee balloting has been used by unscrupulous politicians as an illegal vote-grabbing racket for years, especially in Hartford. Safeguards would have to be built into the system if it is expanded.

As we said last month when Secretary Bysiewicz proposed a June Primary:

This is not a voting integrity issue, yet we place it in the category of “Fighting the last [election] war” (i.e. Changes/reforms that look good when attempting to correct a recent, assumed election problem, without looking at all the consequences. ) We say “Be careful what you ask for”:

Starting in June would move the whole campaign season forward by two months:  Earlier primary, earlier state conventions, earlier pre-convention announcements, gaining support, election committees etc.

  • Many voters complain already that campaigns are too long
  • Many officials complain they are always campaigning
  • Would the Legislature’s “Short Session” be two months shorter, or would they pay less attention to state business?
  • Would candidates want/need more money for longer campaigns (A sure media winner)
  • Would challenging primary candidates find it harder to start earlier.

Finally, its unlikely that lower turnout is due to more travel in 2010 than in 2006 – more likely, its less interest in the differences between candidates and more turnoff by campaign tactics.

Clearly we got one thing right last month, when we said June primaries are a “Sure media winner”.  If the primaries are moved to June we will reference this post when complaints are made that the campaign season is too long or to have the Legislature pay more attention to business in the 1st quarter of an election year.

Warning: New link to check your CT Voter Registration – Not Always Accurate

It has come to our attention that the voter information provided by the Secretary of the State’s new web tool is inaccurate in some cases.

We learned this in the course of discovering a loophole in the integrity of the post-election audit random drawing process.

It has come to our attention that the voter information provided by the Secretary of the State’s new web tool is inaccurate in some cases.

We learned this in the course of discovering a loophole in the integrity of the post-election audit random drawing process:

This spring we realized that there was no way for us to verify the  accuracy of the  list of polling districts subject to se4lection in the 10% random drawing for post-election audits. Each time we had attended the drawing we checked a list of districts supplied by the Secretary of the State’s office against the slips placed in the barrel and occasionally founds some differences to correct. This spring, it occurred to us that we did not have a way to verify the list of districts we were given. In subsequent discussions with the Secretary of the State’s Office, we learned that municipalities are not obligated to send lists of polling places to the Secretary of the State. Municipalities are requested to do that, most do, but are not required to. The Secretary of the State’s Office has proposed legislation to mandate that information be sent, but like many bills it was never passed by the Legislature.

Subsequently we proposed that the list of districts be determined by extracting them from the Secretary of the State’s web feature for voter polling place look up.  Unfortunately, we learned that was also an unreliable source of a list of polling places, and must therefor be supplying incorrect information to some voters. The point was brought home to us when we called on of the towns selected for audit in the most recent random drawing: The district chosen in the town for audit did not currently exist.  The non-existent district was replaced by an alternate in another town, yet without a good lists of districts required an audit loophole is created since existing districts not included in the drawing could be known in advance and therefor guaranteed not to be audited.

Reviewing the Secretary of the State’s press release sent on August 5th, we see that another potential cause of inaccuracy was initially disclosed:  <read>

The website will also provide the location of the individual’s polling place. Users must be aware that occasional special conditions can force changes in
polling places. For the most up to date location, voters should check with their town offices and local registrar of voters.

However, we caution that we can find no similar caution of disclaimer on the website itself associated with the lookup feature. The only mention is in the posted press release.

Update: 9/4/2010

I observed a post-election audit yesterday.  Both districts selected in the random drawing were incorrectly identified by district numbers. Fortunately, the locations were correct and each polling place had only one district. Perhaps the problem is pervasive.

************Original Post 8/5/2010

Link to the Secretary of the State’s website to check that you are registered to vote:<click>  More voting information: <click>

While we applaud the Secretary and her staff for making this available, we have one suggestion: Include the party affiliation in the results. We find that many voters do not recall their affiliation, if any. Having that available would reduce much confusion and unnecessary work for voters and registrars.

CTMirror Op-Ed: State recanvass law inadequate for close elections

The recent Hartford close vote, recanvass and election challenge provides an example to highlight the limitations of the Connecticut recanvass law. Read our op-ed published today in the CTMirror.

The recent Hartford close vote, recanvass and election challenge provides an example to highlight the limitations of the Connecticut recanvass law.  Read our op-ed published today in the CTMirror: <read>

State recanvass law inadequate for close elections

You may have heard or read about post-election recounts after the recent primary. The reports were incorrect. There were no recounts. Connecticut law calls for something else, a recanvass.

The current recanvass law and procedures are inadequate to assure that the every vote is counted accurately and the correct winner certified. Experience shows that the current law is not well understood by election officials, candidates, and the media. The recanvass is often referred to as a recount, yet it is a far cry from the thorough, transparent, and adversarial recount process in other states. A positive example was the highly publicized Minnesota recount of the U.S. Senate race in 2008.

Connecticut’s current recanvass procedures are designed to parallel, for optical scanners, a law which was written for lever machines. In the age of lever machines recanvassing meant rereading counters of lever machines and recounting absentee ballots by hand. The current parallel optical scan procedure calls for rescanning most ballots and hand counting those that election officials deem to have a potential for being misinterpreted by the scanner.

The procedures to select ballots for hand counting are inadequate and do not spell out how ballots should be examined and the standards for manually evaluating them that would conform to law and precedent. Bubbles can be incompletely filled so that they might not be read by the scanner; the voter may have missed the bubble completely; the voter may have crossed out one candidate bubble and filled in another, which the machine would not have counted as a vote; and there may be voter identifying marks on either side of the ballot, which would disqualify the ballot altogether. Observing two optical scan recanvasses, I have seen that, in general, neither candidates nor election officials understand these important details.

The recanvass process is not transparent. The public may only observe from a distance. Even if candidates understand the details, they are only allowed two observers each to watch the entire process. Observers may not object during the process unless election officials consent and act on the objections. Two observers may be insufficient if more than two critical operations are being performed simultaneously, such as multiple teams counting ballots while others assess the scanability of ballots. Some municipalities have separate teams simultaneously counting several districts. Once again, my experience shows that officials and candidates do not generally understand how closely the process should be observed.

Compare that to the way Minnesota handles recounts: All votes are reviewed and counted by hand by teams of two officials, each team closely observed by a representative of each candidate. Both sides of each ballot are shown and examined for disqualifying voter identifying marks. The officials determine if and how each ballot counts. Any of the candidate representatives can disagree, in which case the ballot will later be adjudicated by agreement of the campaigns or, when necessary, by a state canvassing board.

The need for change in Connecticut is evident from the recent primary and recanvass of the race for state representative between incumbent Kenneth Green and Matthew Ritter in Hartford and Bloomfield. Preliminary results had Green ahead by two votes and the recanvass has Ritter ahead by two votes. Just one vote assigned to the wrong candidate or just two votes disqualified could mean a tie.

Green is contesting the count, pointing to some irregularities in the process. Candidates and voters should go beyond that and insist on a thorough, transparent, and adversarial recount on the general principle that the current process, even if accomplished flawlessly by the procedures, is inadequate in very close elections.

Luther Weeks is executive director of CTVotersCount and the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of other Coalition member organizations.

Candidate pledges to “ensure open, fair and secure elections.”

“The Office of Secretary of the State is charged with safeguarding everyone’s right to vote and I will do everything in my power to ensure open, fair and secure elections. Everyone’s vote must count. “

Denise Merrill released a letter on the occasion of the anniversary of the 19th amendment. We are pleased to note the strong statement included in support of election integrity. We trust that all candidates for Secretary of the State are in favor of election integrity, but note that it is regularly overlooked or underemphasized in campaign talks, web sites, and mailers. <the full statement>

The Office of Secretary of the State is charged with safeguarding everyone’s right to vote and I will do everything in my power to ensure open, fair and secure elections. Everyone’s vote must count.  Voting should be easy and I will work hard to explore ways to increase registration and voter turnout.

But more importantly, I believe we need to inspire people to vote. These are difficult times and people are worried about the economy.  We need to give people a reason to vote and get involved