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Candidate files complaint in close election recanvass. Update: Another candidate complaint

In our opinion, in a race a close as this one, the only satisfactory solution is a complete, manual, adversarial recount. While some of Mr. Green’s allegations are cause for concern, even if the recanvass was performed competently, thoroughly, and legally there may be ballots that were not properly classified due to insufficient scrutiny for voter intent and voter identification. Such differences could easily change the winner is this close a race, disqualifying two votes or reversing just one vote could make a tie.

8/25/2010: Via CTNewsJunkie, Ken Green has filed a complaint in the Hartford election, where election night results had him winning by two votes and a close vote racanvass has him losing by two votes. His complaint alleges several questionable machine counts . irregularities, and potential chain of custody issues. The race was for a state house seat which crosses Bloomfield and Hartford requiring a recanvass of the race in both towns. <The Complaint>

Update: Hartford Courant Artilce with more details from the candidates <read>

Just how close do elections need to be to cause an actual, thorough, complete and adversarial recount?

Our Opinion:

The Connecticut Recanvass law is a useful method of reviewing results in close elections. It is based on the former practice of recounting absentee ballots, rereading totals from the backs of all lever machines and retotalling. Now most votes are recounted by scanner with some held back for hand counting. It is not the careful, adversarial, recount performed in other states such as Minnesota. When there is a moderate spread between candidates it would be of value to detect totalling errors, transcription errors, and scanner errors.

But the ultimate value of the recanvass is limited because each ballot is not thoroughly reviewed for voter’s intent and disqualifying marks which could identify the voter. Identifying marks could occur on either side of a ballot and would require that both sides be evaluated by election officials under the watchful eyes of representatives of both candidates. In fact, every ballot in a very close race should be evaluated by election officials and representatives for each candidate. There are usually a small number of ballots that can be difficult to classify which require study, discussion, and even adjudication by a court (e.g. as we saw in the Minnesota recount for Senate in 2008). A recanvass does not provide for such thorough scrutiny by election officials. It does not provide for close scrutiny or objections by candidate representatives. The law only allows two observers for each candidate. Two observers may not be enough to observe every activity going on simultaneously in a recanvass.

We have observed some aspects of three recanvasses in three municipalities. All were performed using different methods and understandings of the same law. None were sufficient to satisfy the requirements of accuracy in this close a race. Here are two examples of my experiences:<Cromwell> <Hartford>

Update, also via CTNewsJunkie: Second Lawsuit Filed Over Hartford Recount <the 2nd Complaint>

This complaint is by the losing candidate in the other election recanvassed (not recounted) in Hartford. This complaint alleges election management and chain of custody irregularities that question the fairness of the election and the credibility of the paper ballots.

Update: Green’s day in court <read>

Update: Green Says Registrar Lied On Stand <read>

Update: Greenwich Audit: Is it worth $1200 $480?

Greenwich Time article: Greenwich picked – yet again – to audit primary results. Greenwich registrars and Secretary of the State debate value of audit and random selection of Greenwich.

Plus – Registrar and we agree: Audit Absentee Ballots Too!

8/20/2010: Greenwich Time article Greenwich picked – yet again – to audit primary results <read>. Greenwich registrars and Secretary of the State debate value of audit and random selection of Greenwich.

We note that Greenwich has about 24 voting districts. Everyone should expect that on a statewide 10% (or 5%) random selection audit, any city with that many districts will almost always have at least one district selected for audit.
In other states with audits, each county must audit a minimum number of districts and many of those counties are smaller than Greenwich in districts, population, and resources.
Contrary to the article, no candidate loses or picks up votes in Connecticut post-election audits. No matter how inaccurate the machine or human count, candidates would have to bring the matter to court and presumably ask for a recount to change the results in any way.
Looking at the web site for Greenwich we find that “They are also responsible for hiring and training over 200 official poll workers as well as maintaining all voting equipment used for the election.” Which at $140 per poll worker would come out to $28,000. Actually we expect they pay lots more than that for the election, since the audit will certainly involve much less than a half a days work, compared to the 17 hour election day and training. Running an election, maintaining the equipment, printing ballots and the ongoing costs of voter registration and the registrars office would seem to dwarf the $1,200.
Even so, we are sympathetic to Greenwich and other municipalities. We are in favor of the state paying the cost of audits as the towns selected perform the work for every voter’s benefit.
Finally, those familiar with our Ten Myths In the Nutmeg State would understand that we do not find the Connecticut post-election audits all that stringent. those familiar with statistics would understand also that it is not the percentage of the districts selected, but the total number of districts counted and number and size of loopholes that determine the power of an audit.

Greenwich picked – yet again – to audit primary results
Neil Vigdor, Staff Writer
Published: 09:53 p.m., Thursday, August 19, 2010

Greenwich’s election officials, have once again received marching orders from the state that they must perform an audit of last week’s primary results from Riverside School.

Six of the seven times since the state started mandating audits three years ago, the town has been picked for a recount, irking its two registrars of voters.

“We’ve been chosen every time,” said Sharon Vecchiolla, the town’s Democratic registrar. “We could do without it.”

Out of a total of 722 voting precincts throughout Connecticut, 73 were randomly selected by the secretary of the state’s office for an audit, which must be conducted between Aug. 25 and Sept. 15. “I was stunned Stamford didn’t get an audit,” Fred DeCaro III, the town’s Republican registrar.

The audit will take place at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 25 in the Town Hall Meeting Room, with eight paid poll workers hand-counting the ballots cast for lieutenant governor in last week’s Republican primary won by Mark Boughton over Lisa Wilson-Foley and the Democratic primary won by Nancy Wyman over Mary Glassman. Greenwich had 12 poll locations for the primary.

Under Connecticut law, election results from 10 percent of all voting precincts in the state must be audited after elections, a mandate that was put in place in three years ago when mechanical lever machines were replaced with electronic scanners. The fax-like machines read blackened ovals on paper ballots that resemble standardized test answer sheets.

“I think we wouldn’t mind if it was dropped to 5 percent of polling places instead of 10,” DeCaro said.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz defended the audit mechanism, saying that the threshold of 10 percent is the most stringent in the nation.

“I think it is a good check and important for voter confidence in our election system,” Bysiewicz said. “I think a high threshold of 10 percent is appropriate because that’s what the University of Connecticut’s computer science department recommended as a threshold that would ferret out fraud or a computer breach.”

The state not only relies on UConn for guidance on audit sample sizes, it sends the results there for a post-mortem and uses the university to test the memory cards in voting machines before elections.

Bysiewicz said that the electronic voting machines have a near 100 percent accuracy rate since they were introduced, except for isolated instances of human error by those casting ballots.

“It means not only that our votes are secure, but that our votes are counted properly,” Bysiewicz said.

A bingo barrel was filled with the names of all 722 polling places, with a representative from the League of Women Voters of Connecticut randomly drawing individual precincts one-by-one to be audited, according to Bysiewicz.

“There are many cities of good size that had more than one precinct and there are towns that had six,” Bysiewicz said. “Sometimes towns manage not to get chosen. The idea is over the course of time, every town has one or more precincts chosen.”

Bysiewicz noted that the city of New Britain once had nine polling places chosen all at once.

A total of 319 ballots were cast at Riverside School in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor, compared to 193 in the Democratic primary.

The cost of the audit to taxpayers was estimated at $1,200 by DeCaro, who said each person doing the hand counts will be paid $140.

After the November 2008 election was audited, John McCain picked up eight votes on Barack Obama in town, while Christopher Shays picked up 14 votes on Jim Himes for Congress. It was a moot point for McCain and Shays, however, who both lost their races.

No irregularities were discovered during the other previous audits done by the town, which occurred after the November 2007 municipal election, the February 2008 presidential primaries, the August 2008 Democratic congressional primary and the September 2009 Democratic tax collector primary.

Greenwich was not selected for an audit after last November’s municipal elections, while two Stamford precincts were.

Despite the hassle of conducting frequent audits, DeCaro said it was much better than the alternative of no checks and balances.

“I wouldn’t be in favor of eliminating the audits entirely,” DeCaro sad[sic].

Update: 9/26/2010 Audit actually took an hour and counters paid $60.00 each, not $140.00; Greenwich Time article <read>

Eight paid poll workers spent less than an hour hand-counting the ballots…The eight poll workers were paid $60 each to do the hand count, [$480.00 assuming the registrars are salaried]

And another Greenwich Time article where we completely agree the registrar: Greenwich registrar recommends audit of absentee ballots <read>

If the state is going to make cities and towns go to the trouble of auditing election results, Republican Registrar of Voters Fred DeCaro III said it should require absentee ballots to be included in hand counts.

Out of the 24,996 votes cast in the Aug. 10 primary in Greenwich, 2,330, or just under 10 percent, were done by absentee ballot, according to the registrars of voters.

All absentee ballots are counted by poll workers at Town Hall, not in the individual precincts where the voters live that are subject to state-mandated audits.

“Why not include absentee ballots?” DeCaro said Wednesday following an audit of the lieutenant governor primary results from Riverside School.

See my comments on both articles at the Greenwich Time site.

Fighting the last [election]war – Be careful what you ask for!

There are several recent stories about the low turnout in the August 10th primary and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz suggesting the primary date be changed from August to June. 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.)

Due to the low turnout, Bysiewicz is calling for several election reforms she believes will boost voter turnout in future primary elections.

“Obviously, turning voters out to a primary in the middle of the summer when many people are on vacation is a challenge,” she said. “I believe there is much more we can do to make our elections easier and more accessible for Connecticut voters. One step we could take is to move the primary date from August to June, a time when more voters are likely to pay attention.”

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.

Update: 9/28/2010 Susan Bysiewicz op-ed in the Courant advocating June primaries, no-excuse mail voting, and election day registration: How To Solve The Problem Of Low Voter Turnout <read>

As CTVotersCount readers know, we favor election day registration, and oppose any expansion of mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting. Mail-in voting has security risks and can also unintentionally disenfranchise voters. The way to motivate voters is to give them a reason to vote.

Post-Election Audit Drawing: 73 Districts 45 Municipalities Selected

Today the Secretary of the State’s Office conducted the random drawing. Members of CTVotersCount and the League of Women Voters performed the selections.

The Official Press Release: Secretary of the State’s Office Draws Precincts to Have Statewide Primary Results Audited: <read>

UCONN: Failed memory cards caused by weak batteries, inadequate design

This week at the 2010 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop on Trustworthy Elections in Washington, D.C., Dr. Alex Shvartsman and his team from the Uconn VoTeR Center delivered a significant paper. It covered research into the cause of the complete failure of the AccuVote-OS memory cards, at an unacceptable rate — We suggest the costs of mitigating the problems should be born by the manufacturer and/or distributor since the ultimate cause is the inadequate design of the memory cards for their intended purpose.

This week I attended the 2010 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop on Trustworthy Elections in Washington, D.C., Dr. Alex Shvartsman and his team from the Uconn VoTeR Center delivered a significant paper. It covered research into the cause of the complete failure of the AccuVote-OS memory cards, at an unacceptable rate. <See our earlier coverage>. <The Research Report>

[W]e determined the time interval from the instant when a battery warning is issued by the AccuVote to the point when the battery does not have enough voltage to retain data on the memory card.We show that such interval is about 2 weeks. Thus timely warnings cannot be provided to protect against battery discharge and loss of data during the election process…

Recommendations

we determined the time interval from the instant when a battery warning is issued by the AccuVote to the point when the battery does not have enough voltage to retain data on the memory card. We show that such interval is about 2 weeks. Thus timely warnings cannot be provided to protect against battery discharge and loss of data during the election process…

The lifetime of the Energizer battery, when its voltage remains above the 2V needed for data retention in standby mode, at that current load, according to its datasheet [9] is 9,000 hours or approximately one year.

Given that it is possible that a memory card is used for elections once a year, it leads us to the same conclusion: For each election, a decision would be made, whether or not to replace the batteries for this election. The decision would be based on the amount of time since the batteries were last replaced and on the estimate of the service life of the battery (e.g., using the procedure at the end of the previous section).

Discussing the challenge with Dr. Shvartsman at the workshop, it seems that replacing the batteries is more complicated than might be assumed. The battery is under the memory card label, so replacement includes completely removing all remnants of the old label then preparing and placing a new label on the memory card. Shvartsman estimated the replacement cost, including labor, may be on the order of $10 per memory card.

We suggest that $10 per year per card is well worth avoiding most of the problems associated with the current huge, unacceptable failure rate. The total cost would be about $40,000 per year, somewhere in the range of $0.025 per ballot cast. To put this in context, ballot printing is about $0.45 per ballot and election costs average in the range of $5.00 to $8.00 per ballot cast. We also suggest the costs of mitigating the problems should be born by the manufacturer and/or distributor since the ultimate cause is the inadequate design of the memory cards for their intended purpose.

PS: Dr. Shrvartsman is mentioned prominently in an article posted at Verified Voting: Voting Technology Research Gets In-Depth <read>

Jerry Farrell signs “Commitment for Connecticut” program (Corrected)

According to Stamford Plus, Secretary of the State Candidate Jerry Farrell has signed the Commitment for Connecticut from Citizens for Change. Checking both the Citizens for Change site and Farrell’s site, we have been unable to locate copies of the completed, signed commitment form.

Update/Correction: An earlier version of this post read: “According to Stamford Plus <read> and his personal Facebook page“. In an email, Farrell Campaign Manager, Gregg Hannan asked me to verify that it was in Jerry’s Facebook. I thought I saw it in his personal Facebook, however, I cannot find it – I must have been reading and blogging too fast. I apologize.

******************

According to Stamford Plus <read> Secretary of the State Candidate Jerry Farrell has signed the Commitment for Connecticut from Citizens for Change. Checking both the Citizens for Change site and Farrell’s site, we have been unable to locate copies of the completed, signed commitment form. Checking the web we find the blank commitments for various Connecticut offices, including the Secretary of the State:

CANDIDATE COMMITMENT
CT SECRETARY OF THE STATE

Distribution to All Declared Candidates Only – Notice(s) Applies

1. I will not serve more than _________ terms.
2. I will oppose same day voter registration.
3. I will streamline the candidate filing process to facilitate participation and
install certification of eligibility validation for all electoral offices.
4. I will simplify the citizen signature process required of candidates to petition
on to any party primary ballot or general election ballot.
5. I will advocate for the repeal of the business entity tax.
6. I will support priority legislation that requires: transparency in all state and
local spending government[sic]; online posting of every state and local
expenditure; and independent external audits.
7. I will decrease the total annual budget for this agency from the current
aggregate actual expenditures to a level that is the lower of either an overall
reduction of _______ percent; or a total that is equal or lower than the last
full fiscal year’s total actual expenditures for this agency.
Signed by: Date:
Print Name: _______________________________________ CONNECTICUT

Yesterday, we emailed the Farrell Campaign to ask for the term limits he committed to in question #1 and the budget cut percent in question #7. We also have asked for clarification of his ideas for streamlining the candidate filing process (#3) and simplifying the citizen signature petition requirements (#4). We will provide an update once we have a response from the campaign.

Comment:

#1: We must note the irony that while some are concerned with candidates pledging to maximum terms, the question minimum terms has been raised in both the Secretary of the State race and Attorney General race where several have been asked if they would commit to serve out their first term and longer, not running for higher office.

#2: We conditionally favor election day registration, however, only if it is done in ways that protect voting integrity and provide equivalent identification checks to those performed for current voter registration.

#3, #4: These seem a bit to vague to evaluate without more details.

#6: We note that #6 applies to both the state and municipalities. It may represent an extensive local mandate. We have observed several hearings over the last two years in the Connecticut Legislature where municipal clerks testified against the posting of minutes on web sites, based on the cost of such postings. We are generally in favor of open and transparent government along with effective audits. In the Secretary of the State’s Office, we would start with detailed posting of district by district election results, followed by audits that are independent of the Secretary of the State’s Office.

We are not familiar with Citizens for Change, it seems to only have commitments for Connecticut candidates. Their web identifies their founder, Richard Olivastro and says:

About Us

In the entire length of the human experience, America’s more than two century existence is but a short time. Yet, America’s birth stands as the singular moment of change in man’s relation to man and the primacy of self-government. If it is an aberration, we consider it the perfect aberration and therefore worth conserving, preserving, cultivating and promoting. If change is a constant, then responsible citizens need to engage in every public process to ensure change always moves towards greater individual freedom and away from statism, servitude, socialism, collectivism, fascism and communism.

Richard Olivastro

IRV: Is it legal in Connecticut? Can our scanners compute it?

Recently we posted and commented on an article in The Day, covering the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) proposal for New London. The article quoted Secretary of the State Bysiewicz on the constitutionality of the IRV and if our AccuVote-OS scanners could be used for an IRV election. The post prompted comments and the need for more complete answers. We queried the Secretary of the State’s Office and Jeff Silvestro, General Manager of LHS Associates. Mr. Silvestro responded:

We queried the Secretary of the State’s Office and Jeff Silvestro, General Manager of LHS Associates. Mr. Silvestro responded:

There are two parts to this answer:

1. Yes, the AVOS can handle IRV. We currently run similar elections in Cambridge, MA and have previously run IRV elections in Burlington, VT. Burlington no longer runs IRV since the citizens voted to move away from this method last year.

2. No, it cannot be done in CT. In order for the AVOS to handle an IRV election we would need to use software other than GEMS, currently GEMS is the only software certified for use in CT. Also an older version of firmware would need to be installed in each AVOS unit, this older firmware is also not currently certified in CT. Lastly, the ballot layout for an IRV election would not match the current specification used for ballot layout in CT.

The Secretary of the State’s Office responded:

When the Secretary served as Chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee in the Legislature, she was open to conducting hearings on this issue. During her tenure as Secretary, she has remained opened to exploration of the various types of run off voting that have been put forward by various groups. While the office would defer to the Attorney General for an interpretation of law, we do believe that there are constitutional and statutory issues that would need to be examined and addressed, such as minority representation, in implementation. Additionally, the current certified voting machines cannot accommodate preferential voting, and changes to firmware would be required, along with new certifications, both federally and at the state level.

In summary, it is clear that legally our machines cannot support fully counting IRV elections for the foreseeable future. And there are several Constitutional issues and statutory issues which may well make IRV illegal or unconstitutional at this time.

There are two parts to this answer:
1. Yes, the AVOS can handle IRV.  We currently run similar elections in Cambridge, MA and have previously run IRV elections in Burlington, VT.  Burlington no longer runs IRV since the citizens voted to move away from this method last year.
2. No, it cannot be done in CT.  In order for the AVOS to handle an IRV election we would need to use software other than GEMS, currently GEMS is the only software certified for use in CT.  Also an older version of firmware would need to be installed in each AVOS unit,  this older firmware is also not currently certified in CT.  Lastly, the ballot layout for an IRV election would not match the current specification used for ballot layout in CT.

Podcast: Democratic candidates debate voting on WATR

We were about to write a post about how little voting and voting integrity discussion we have heard in the Secretary of the State campaigns so far. Yet, yesterday there was a joint appearance/debate between the Democratic Primary candidates Gerry Garcia and Denise Merrill which focused manly on voting issues, including voting integrity

We were about to write a post about how little voting and voting integrity discussion we have heard in the Secretary of the State campaigns so far. Yet. yesterday there was a joint appearance/debate between the Democratic Primary candidates Gerry Garcia and Denise Merrill which focused manly on voting issues, including voting integrity. <listen>

The candidates discuss early voting, the Citizen’s Election Program, increasing turnout, optical scanners, absentee vote fraud, popular election of the President, along with their qualifications/motivations, creating jobs, record keeping, business registration, and the state budget.

Opinion: We were pleasantly surprised to hear the focus on voting issues; to hear in several cases that the candidates agree with CTVotersCount positions; support some of our recommendations; and are in sync with our reasoning. On the other hand we note that in many areas we differ with either one or both candidates. There are many issues where the devil is in the details, deserving much more in depth consideration than is possible for candidates, media, and the voters during a modern campaign.

IRV New London: Residents, Registrar, and Candidate concerns

“Instant Runoff Voting is a well intended idea, but does not work as advertised in real life elections. For that reason, several jurisdictions have rejected IRV after one or two implementations.”

“There’s no point to it, Why go to something like this? Most people don’t understand it. Most people don’t want it.”

A Registrar of Voter’s and Citizens Views: An article in the Day: <read>

Complex voting proposal in charter criticized
By Matt Collette Day Staff Writer
Registrar raises issue of legality in two changes

New London – Several residents expressed concern – or at least confusion – over a proposed system where voters would rank mayor candidates at a public hearing Tuesday night on proposed charter changes.

Registrar of Voters Bill Giesing said he was concerned that the rank voting plan – which would allow for instant results rather than a runoff election at a later date – as well as one that would have four city councilors represent specific wards, would violate state law.

“I just want to bring this to your attention,” Giesing said. “I think this is something serious you should address.” He said communities are prohibited by state statute from defining wards.

David Hayes, who lives on Ocean Avenue, called rank voting a “totally unacceptable” way to determine who will be the mayor.

“There’s no point to it,” Hayes said. “Why go to something like this? Most people don’t understand it. Most people don’t want it.”

Charter Review Commission Chairman Robert Grills said rank voting would allow for the mayor to be selected by a majority of voters in the main election, when turnout is higher, than in runoff elections. It would also ensure that the winner would be the candidate supported by the majority of voters, not just the largest plurality, he said.

The meeting was supposed to start with an overview of the proposed changes, but the hearing began without a formal presentation because computer problems prevented Grills from loading a PowerPoint presentation.

“Most of you, it seems, have read most or all of the charter as we have put it forward,” Grills said before moving directly into the public hearing.

Grills said he expected that the commission would have another meeting to address concerns from the public hearing before handing its draft over to City Clerk Michael Tranchida and the City Council, which may put charter revisions up for a vote by the November election.

“I don’t think this should be rushed to the ballot in November,” said Dorothy Mansfield, another Ocean Avenue resident. “I’d rather see a fine, finished product with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”

One member of the commission, Minerva Dudley-Cook, said she hoped the charter review process would not be rushed toward a November vote and instead take the full 16 months it was given to consider changes to the city charter.

“I don’t think we are where the chairman says we are,” Dudley-Cook said. “I think we should take the full 16 months.”

Winning Candidate’s View: Voting integrity advocate describes experience of a winning candidate in North Carolina in letter to New London:

Honorable New London City Councilors:

Complex voting proposal in charter criticized
by Matt Collette 07/28/2010
http://www.theday.com/article/20100728/NWS01/307289880/1019&town=

Please accept these additional comments regarding regarding New London’s consideration of adopting instant runoff voting to elect your mayor.

I am writing to you from North Carolina, where IRV was tested in 2 cities in 2007 and 1 in 2009.

Instant Runoff Voting is a well intended idea, but does not work as advertised in real life elections. For that reason, several jurisdictions have rejected IRV after one or two implementations. Instant Runoff Voting was implemented and rejected by Sunnyvale, California, Burlington, Vermont, Pierce Co Washington, Cary North Carolina. . Aspen will put a measure offering to repeal IRV in Nov. Aspen Colorado (will hold another vote in Nov 2010 to make repeal binding) http://instantrunoff.blogspot.com/2010/05/instant-runoff-voting-rejected-by.html

*Don Frantz, the only person elected by instant runoff voting in North Carolina speaks out *

Don points out that with instant runoff voting there is voter confusion, lack of confidence in the system, and often the result of IRV is a plurality “win”. Don, the only person ever elected with IRV votes says IRV is not worth it. Don says “To me the number one concern is election integrity. If we can’t trust the election process we’ve got, I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care what the turnout is.” Cary ultimately reverted back to majority 50% + 1 and traditional runoff elections.

(Don Frantz is currently a Cary Town Council Member running for a state legislative office… New London may or may not experience the technical difficulties of IRV that Cary NC did, there are other issues to consider. such as majority, transparency, and confidence in the outcome of the election. Cary has the most PHDs per capita in our state for a city its size )

*Statement of Donald Frantz, Member of Cary Town Council*

March 12, 2009 Meeting of Cary Town Council
Transcribed by Andrew Silver from video recording at http://www.townofcary.org/med/video/video1.htm

I’d like to preface my comments just letting folks in the audience know that I was elected utilizing instant runoff voting. I’m actually the first candidate in the state of North Carolina to ever be elected utilizing instant runoff voting. So if you ever play trivial pursuit and that’s the question, then you know what the answer is. So I kind of know a thing or two about it and unfortunately I was the guinea pig. And It wasn’t really the best experience I ever had to go through. But those were the rules and we all played by them. There’s actually a gentleman sitting in the audience whom I do respect quite a bit that believes I won my election because of instant runoff voting, and while I would argue with him – you know – tooth and nail, he’s entitled to his opinion and I’ve got mine, and I really didn’t think there was much broken with our current system. But, you know, Hank, we always have to try something new.

There’s a number of factors to consider – very important factors to consider – when deciding what type of election we want to go with. There’s cost, voter turnout, participation, time. . .whatever. To me the number one concern is election integrity. If we can’t trust the election process we’ve got, I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care what the turnout is.

Instant runoff voting – the machines count the first vote. We all know on the first go round who got what. But then the votes are transported to the board of elections. They’re taken out of their locked box. They’re put in little baggies and sorted. and then when it’s time to count the ballots, they’re actually all pulled out of the bags and put on the table, and a bunch of different hands are in the pile, and you’re moving one over here and one over there. You’re getting the first and second place finishers out. You set them in one pile. You go through and you get the third place finishers, fourth place finishers. If they didn’t pick a second and third candidate, you put them in another pile.

You end up with all these piles on the table. And then you try to narrow it down to the non-top two vote getters that did pick a second or a third. And then you start trying to count those by hand. My election district, B, it’s a very small district in town. I’ve got 8 precincts. A little over 3000 votes were cast. And it took the better part of a day to hand count those ballots, and it took all of a day to hand count them and get the math right. When I left the process, I had won by 48 votes. An hour later to find out I was up by 25 votes, because somebody didn’t clear out a number on a calculator. To find out the next day I was up by 49 votes.

The numbers kept changing. I wasn’t very confident in what I was experiencing. I would feel a lot more confident about IRV if the machines could actually count the ballots, first, second, and third. When – after the ballots were hand counted and sorted and all that initial stuff was done, they go back in their baggies and back in their little boxes and what not. And then the elections director, by herself, recounted all those ballots in a room. No observers – I didn’t get to observe, put it that way. So, that was a big concern of mine, you know. I’m glad the – I mean I respect Cherie Poucher a lot. I had a great experience with her. I’m glad she doesn’t hate my guts, because I probably wouldn’t have won if she did.

We’ve heard that the machines can now somehow count the ballots, but they couldn’t count them two years ago. We’ve heard that the state is going to allow that. I’ve still got questions as far as – you know – where’s the software coming from? Who’s providing it? Is it something that Fairvote’s come up with? Is it something designed by a special interest group? Has it been tested, or are we a guinea pig now on can the machines count the ballots? I don’t know, but I don’t know that I want to subject three of my colleagues to this experiment. And actually I took exception to the word “experiment.” That just rubs me wrong.

I think IRV treats voters ballots unequally. Some ballots get counted twice. Some only get counted once. In 2005, in the primary election, I voted for one candidate. But as the runoff went on, I changed my vote. I voted for a different candidate come the final election, because I heard some things that changed my mind. I saw people in a different light. With IRV, I don’t have the option to change my mind. It assumes I am going to come back and cast my ballot for the same candidate. I can tell you the time that I didn’t do it.

There is some confusion as evidenced by our biennial survey. Obviously the majority of Cary citizens did find the experience pretty easy to understand and didn’t have that many problems with it. *But over 30% did find it somewhat confusing and over 20% found it very confusing *– or did not understand at all, I think is what it says here. When you come to show up to vote and you just have one box to mark I don’t know anybody that finds that confusing. So to me – even if you just confuse 10% of the people, that’s 10% too many. When we’re confusing 20% of the people, that’s really too many.

I do have some concerns with special interest groups that have been diving into this issue. I just – I appreciate the Cary citizens that have shown up to speak tonight. There’s issues of manipulation involved. My next election I’m worried about one of my opponents – I get one of my well-liked buddies in the community to run and we do this whole run on us “Vote for us 1-2” campaign, ensuring at least one of us wins. It actually happened in my race. One of the candidates contacted my other opponent to see did they want to run 1 and 2 together. Now thankfully that opponent said “Heck, no.” and then we talked about it and we decided that was not something we wanted to do. That concerns me.

Voter turnout. The argument for that is really weird. It’s we want to increase voter turnout, so let’s play with the way we elect people. Let’s change the process. Quite frankly – we just saw it in the last presidential election. If you want to increase voter turnout, get some good candidates to run. Most of the time you are voting for the lesser of two evils. The majority of candidates that we have to choose from these days suck, you know. The candidate is the one that motivates people to get out of bed or get off the couch and go to the polls and cast a vote. I’m not going to show up at the polls and go “Whoo! I get to mark 3 bubbles now instead of one.” It’s not inspiring me to vote, you know. But like we just saw Barack Obama. He inspired folks. He motivated folks. He got people to the polls. That was pretty impressive. I agree with Mr. Smith’s comment. You know, we want to increase voter participation, but yet we hold our elections in October when nobody’s looking for an election, and then we hold them in off years when we’re not running with state candidates or presidential candidates. “Election – what, that was yesterday?” Nobody knows. So if you want to have 50% voter turnout in the Cary council election let’s do it the same time as state races. We’ll do it in November.

Cost is a concern to me. Especially this year, given the budget, you know. We’re all going to have to make some really tough decisions. IRV is considerably cheaper than traditional runoffs. But, seeing that, in my research – trust me, I have researched it. When I had to go through this I had no idea what I was getting myself into, so I did a lot of research on IRV. Basically – I would estimate 90% of the elections I studied, the person who won the first go round won the second go round. It did not change the outcome. So if you really want to view the right election, give citizens one voice, one vote – do plurality. You know, you show up and you mark one bubble and you go home. The person with the most bubbles wins. If there’s a concern over 8 people running for the same office, then maybe we should consider setting a threshold. Instead of saying, “OK, well 50% – well, OK maybe you have to break 35 or 40 percent on the first go round, and if a candidate does, no instant runoff, no runoff. The election’s over. You got the most votes, you win.” But if there’s 5 people running and they all get 20% and one got 21% – I can see the need for some form of runoff system. I really can, and yes, instant runoff is going to be the cheapest, but with the other concerns I have, I just, I don’t know if it’s the way to go.

Durham is currently – the Durham board of elections is currently trying to convince their city council to go back to plurality elections. Ronald Gregory, who’s the chair of the Durham board of elections states *“The plurality method is the only method that ensures one vote, one election voting process,” *and he also (inaudible). My preference is to go to plurality elections. If there is some form – have a concern with multiple candidates and no clear winner then maybe we should look at some kind of threshold that they have to break.

# # #

Note – Cary, North Carolina ultimately decided to keep their majority elections with traditional 1-1 runoffs. They considered plurality but decided they wanted what they had before IRV.

April 13, 2009 Cary to Hold Public Hearing to Consider Changing Election Method

A Cary City Council election goes to traditional runoff in November 2009, no one from Cary says they wish they had IRV:

November 6, 2009 Jennifer Robinson Wins Run-Off in District A

http://www.carycitizen.com/2009/11/06/jenninfer-robinson-wins-run-off-in-district-a/

As previously reported, the October 6 election for Cary Town Council (District A) ended in a run-off between incumbent Jennifer Robinson and challenger Lori Bush. In October, Ms. Robinson garnered 49.9 percent of the vote to Lori Bush’s 42.3 percent. On November 3, Jennifer Robinson won her third term representing Cary’s largest district.

November 3 results:
Jennifer Robinson 53.76% 2,337 votes
Lori Bush 46.12% 2,005 votes
Write-in .12% 5 votes
Congratulations go out to Jennifer Robinson.

http://instantrunoff.blogspot.com/2010/07/don-frantz-only-person-elected-by.html

Best regards,
Joyce McCloy

As we have often repeated, IRV sounds good, but has unintended and unanticipated consequences.

<IRV: Not So Fast, No So Simple> <earlier New London Commentary>

Printer-friendly version – TheDay.comComplex voting proposal in charter criticized
By Matt Collette Day Staff Writer
Registrar raises issue of legality in two changes
New London – Several residents expressed concern – or at least confusion – over a proposed system where voters would rank mayor candidates at a public hearing Tuesday night on proposed charter changes.
Registrar of Voters Bill Giesing said he was concerned that the rank voting plan – which would allow for instant results rather than a runoff election at a later date – as well as one that would have four city councilors represent specific wards, would violate state law.
“I just want to bring this to your attention,” Giesing said. “I think this is something serious you should address.” He said communities are prohibited by state statute from defining wards.
David Hayes, who lives on Ocean Avenue, called rank voting a “totally unacceptable” way to determine who will be the mayor.
“There’s no point to it,” Hayes said. “Why go to something like this? Most people don’t understand it. Most people don’t want it.”
Charter Review Commission Chairman Robert Grills said rank voting would allow for the mayor to be selected by a majority of voters in the main election, when turnout is higher, than in runoff elections. It would also ensure that the winner would be the candidate supported by the majority of voters, not just the largest plurality, he said.
The meeting was supposed to start with an overview of the proposed changes, but the hearing began without a formal presentation because computer problems prevented Grills from loading a PowerPoint presentation.
“Most of you, it seems, have read most or all of the charter as we have put it forward,” Grills said before moving directly into the public hearing.
Grills said he expected that the commission would have another meeting to address concerns from the public hearing before handing its draft over to City Clerk Michael Tranchida and the City Council, which may put charter revisions up for a vote by the November election.
“I don’t think this should be rushed to the ballot in November,” said Dorothy Mansfield, another Ocean Avenue resident. “I’d rather see a fine, finished product with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”
One member of the commission, Minerva Dudley-Cook, said she hoped the charter review process would not be rushed toward a November vote and instead take the full 16 months it was given to consider changes to the city charter.
“I don’t think we are where the chairman says we are,” Dudley-Cook said. “I think we should take the full 16 months.”

Report: Connecticut below average

This is good news! A Caltech/MIT Report measuring address errors in voter registration files places Connecticut below average in the number of bad addresses.

This is good news! A Caltech/MIT Report measuring address errors in voter registration files places Connecticut below average in the number of bad addresses. No link yet to the full report, but here is the story from Boston Review:<read>

Congratulations to elections officials to the Secretary of the State’s Office and local election officials.