Category: CT

CT: Secretary Of The State: Misstatements on WNPR

(Note: We have offered the Secretary of the State’s Office an opportunity to comment on this post)

Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, was on “Where We Live” on WNPR this AM. She made several misstatements and misleading omissions (these are not exact quotes as we have no transcript)

Misstatement:
Bysiewicz: UConn tests the cards before they are used in the election.

Fact: UConn does pre-election testing of some cards before some elections and produces a report after the election. As far as we know none of the cards pre-election tested by UConn have been used in an election.

  • In Nov 07 the tests did not cover all districts and we have no reason to believe that the cards were selected randomly – and they showed that less than half of election officials fully followed procedures.
  • In the Feb 08 Presidential Primary there was no pre-election test.
  • In the Aug 08 Primary single cards were shipped to UConn from the vendor, LHS, for testing and not randomly selected.
  • Given this record, we cannot predict what method of testing will be used this November.

Fact: CTVotersCount.org pushed for 100% pre-election testing of memory cards by UConn under a transparent chain-of-custody and controls. The Secretary of the State and the Government Elections and Administrations Committee supported this.  However, the bill was not taken up by the Legislature and the Secretary of the State has not chosen to pursue such testing. This would cost money, but so does the campaign to educate voters in filling out ballots.

Misstatement:
Bysiewicz: LHS invented the Diebold AccuVote-OS optical scanner.

Fact: This was debunked here the last time we heard the Secretary make this misstatement in March: <read>

Omission:
Bysiewicz: Your paper ballots will be counted in the audit.

Fact: Only some paper ballots will be counted in the audit – only those counted by machine in the district – exempt are centrally counted absentee ballots, ballots hand counted in precincts etc.

Omission:
Bysiewicz: In close elections in a recount each ballot is checked by two individuals.

Fact: The Secretary did not mention that most ballots are then simply counted again by machine. See recent events in Washington D.C. to understand the practical dangers of such recounting <read>

Omission:
Bysiewicz: Our 10% audit is the toughest in the country.

Fact: The 10% is only one parameter. Our audit law has many loopholes and exemptions which make it less than adequate <read>

Fact: Actual observations of the audits have shown them to be of questionable credibility. <read>

UTC Ends Bid To Buy Diebold

Hartford Courant article <read>

In a letter to Diebold released Monday, UTC Chairman George David said UTC was withdrawing its offer of $40 a share, which valued Diebold at about $2.6 billion…

On Sept. 30, Diebold filed a late 2007 annual report with securities regulators. It also filed revised quarterly reports for the second and third quarters of 2007 and the first two quarters of 2008. Securities Exchange Commission and Justice Department investigations of Diebold’s accounting practices remain open.

Earlier coverage of Diebold’s problems<here>

UConn Report Shows Junk Memory Cards Direct From Vendor

Posted on October 11, UConn has a new report dated October 7th of the Pre-Election testing of memory cards for the August 2008 Primary, Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the August 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections <read>

There was a different methodology used to gather cards for this report. Previous reports were of an incomplete selection of memory cards shipped to UConn by registrars — which should have been subject to pre-election testing before selection and shipping to UConn. Those reports demonstrated that many election officials failed to properly follow pre-election testing procedures. In addition there were questions about “junk” data cards that could not be read. This latest report avoids the embarrassing level of failure to follow procedures, while getting closer to the source of the “Junk” memory card problem — cards were shipped to UConn directly from the vendor, LHS:

Larger than acceptable number of cards contained what we describe as “junk” data. By saying that we understand that the card does not contain proper programming, and instead contains what appears to be random noise. When one puts the card containing the “junk” data into the AV-OS terminal it issues a prompt requesting to format the card. Thus such cards are easily detectable and cannot possibly be used in an election. It seems unlikely that these cards were (electromagnetically) damaged in shipping. Consequently, it appears that these cards were either not adequately tested by LHS Associates, or they experienced some kind of hardware/software failure at some point. Among the audited cards 5.4% of the cards contained junk data. This percentage is high and this issue has to be resolved in the future.…

We performed pre-election audit of cards for all districts, and in this sense it is a complete audit. However the cards do not contain the results of pre-election testing done by the districts, and they were not randomly selected by the districts for the purpose of the audit. Instead the cards were provided to us directly by LHS. The results of the audit would be strengthened if it covered also the pre-election testing done by the districts. Our previous memory card audits in fact included this. However, our forthcoming companion report (to be available at http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Reports.html) will document the results of the post-election audit, covering most of the districts, and containing the observations about the card usage in pre-election testing at districts and in the election itself.

This is a useful report as it gets closer to the source of memory card errors and is an example of UConn’s excellent work. We must also recognize that none of the memory card reports accomplished so far have really covered a complete and random selection of memory cards.

Connecticut Accused Of Purging Voters In Violation Of Federal Law

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group has released a report that is getting national attention, Vanishing Voters: Why Registered Voters Fall Off the Rolls. The report accuses 19 states of improperly purging voters from the rolls, in violation of federal law. <read>

Fifteen years after enactment of the NVRA, however, many states continue to appear unaware of the federal rules regarding voter roll purges. A survey of state laws and election officials shows that, on the eve of the 2008 general election, many voters across the country do not appear to enjoy the important voter protection provisions afforded by the NVRA.


Connecticut is among the 19 states accused of violating federal law, to the detriment of democracy.

Citations in the report where Connecticut is listed: Continue reading “Connecticut Accused Of Purging Voters In Violation Of Federal Law”

Constitutional Vote Will Not Be Audited

When Connecticut voters go to the polls in November, they will vote on calling a Constitutional Convention. Large groups are aligned for and against the bill with those in charge of the election opposed. Our personal stand for or against the bill is irrelevant. Integrity and confidence in elections is our concern.

Our points are that like all questions and referendums that vote is exempt from the post-election audit law and that those charged with running elections should not audit themselves. Questions should not be exempt from audit – they are not exempt from error and fraud. We need an independent election audit authority – audit decisions should not be made by the entity being audited.
Continue reading “Constitutional Vote Will Not Be Audited”

Audit No Evil, Recount No Evil, Uncover No Evil

Update: The vote was close and high given that it was a referendum with reduced poll hours. The insiders’ choice won by 52% to 48%. There is no reason to believe the result is incorrect, yet with no audit there will always be a question of credibility in Connecticut referendums.

***********

Referendum: Front Page Story, Yet Paper Ballots Will Be Ignored

Business As Usual In the Nutmeg State – Another Electronic Vote Without A Post-Election Audit
Continue reading “Audit No Evil, Recount No Evil, Uncover No Evil”

Caught Between The Glitches and The Gotyas

We have been covering a significant report by VotersUnite.org, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections. , the report summarizes the bind Connecticut and other states are in:

Violations of Federal Law Leave States in a Double Bind. The federal government fails to meet its HAVA deadlines for giving guidance to the states on how to comply with HAVA, yet states are held accountable to comply.

News from Florida of our vendor, Diebold Premier continues to reveal the disappointing quality of their products and the Federal testing programs. From the Harold Tribune a short sour story <read>

Two Diebold glitches in one month? That’s no way to rebuild confidence in automated elections.

Sarasota and Hillsborough counties experienced one of the problems Tuesday night. They suffered delays from a software flaw that revealed itself when officials tried to integrate absentee ballot totals into overall election results…

The manufacturer is Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold — a name long connected to doubts about the security of voting.

Earlier this month, Premier accepted blame for the other glitch — a coding error that can sometimes prevent precinct vote totals from electronically transferring to central tabulation systems. The problem could afflict 34 states.

Good news, bad news

The good news about these flaws is that faulty counts can be detected by cross-checks and refuted by a paper trail of ballots. The votes still exist, in other words, though they can be harder to find.

The bad news is that confidence has been shaken, yet again, in automation that is critical to democratic elections. The extra vigilance required to thwart these potential glitches adds to election administrators’ burden and cost.

The fact that the Premier problems occur intermittently, undiscovered during certification or testing procedures, is especially troubling. In Sarasota County, for example, the high-speed scanner/software glitch did not surface in a mock election held last month…

Despite many reforms since the 2000 fiasco, voting systems are nowhere near as credible, secure or user-friendly as they should be.

Here is the good news and bad news for Connecticut:

The good news is that these latest glitches do not apply here because we total results manually from election night paper tapes, rather than accumulating memory cards.

The bad news is we are totally dependent on Premier and their distributor, LHS, for our elections – they are rightfully in the spotlight and being sued for poor quality and generally remain in denial. The lack of security and poor quality of the AccuVote-OS has been proven by independent scientific studies commissioned by CT, CA, and OH.

Moderate good news is that Connecticut has chosen optical scan which is the best system available which meets standards set by the Help America Vote Act.

The bad bad news is that there is no alternative in sight. All the vendors have poor products with no better products or vendors in sight. While some states are improving their laws, procedures, and actions, proposed Federal laws in the Senate would “fix” the Help America Vote Act by making the situation much worse.

The Outsourced State

Last week we covered a significant report by VotersUnite.org, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections. The report describes the multiple ways that states have become dependent on vendors for elections, how Federal laws and actions have placed election officials in an impossible bind, how arrogant vendors take advantage of the situation, that elections are at risk, and democracy in peril. It also highlights some states that are completely dependent on vendors for almost every phase of every election.

Looking at Connecticut, we outsource less than the states that are highlighted in the VotersUnite report. You could conclude that we are much better off, our elections much less at risk. You might be wrong.

The VotersUnite report uses the theme of outsourcing being a tunnel that undermines elections. Here are the major outsourced elements covered by the report. Like most states, Connecticut does not outsource them all (here we cross out those not completely outsourced by Connecticut):

  • Equipment
  • Software
  • Installation
  • Training/Troubleshooting
  • Ballot Programming
  • Pre-Election Testing
  • Maintenance/Repairs
  • Election Day Assistance
  • Results Retrieval
  • Trouble Shooting/Investigation
  • Recount Management

We prefer a different theme: “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link(s)”.

Two of these elements represent a significant risk to Connecticut elections:

  1. Ballot Programming – Before each election memory cards are programmed by a vendor, LHS Associates, in Massachusetts, by people over which we have no supervision.
  2. Maintenance/Repairs – Over this last summer each of our optical scanners was subject to mandatory maintenance planned and performed by LHS Associates.

This summer’s maintenance was to be performed under the observation of election officials but not the public – how hard would it be for a busy, untrained, non-technical election official to look away for a few seconds while a scanner was open, giving the vendor time to replace the permanent program chip in the machine with one with the same external label but with a rogue program inside? What guarantee is there that the original chip had the approved program when the scanners were originally delivered?

“Oh” you say, “this is so far fetched and local officials perform pre-election testing before each election.”

A recent paper by the University of Connecticut clearly demonstrates the ways in which clever coding in the permanent memory of our AccuVote-OS optical scanners can defeat pre-election testing. The report title almost says it all: Tampering with Special Purpose Trusted Computing Devices: A Case Study in Optical Scan E-Voting <read>

Also a memory card test by UConn commissioned by the Secretary of the State surprisingly revealed that less than half of local election officials were able to fully follow pre-election testing procedures.

Reports by UConn and those commissioned by the Secretaries of State of CA and OH also demonstrate the risks of the memory cards and their vulnerability to insiders.

The companies we keep:

Recall that our State’s chief election official incorrectly believes that LHS invented the AccuVote-OS