Costs | CTVotersCount.org

What’s the matter with H.R.1, Part 2

Yesterday in <Part 1> we covered our three greatest concerns with the election administration in H.R.1: U.S. House Resolution 1, “For the People Act of 2021”. Here we will cover the rest of our major concerns, these alone argue that the bill should not be passed without a number of major and minor changes…

In <Part 3> we address what is clearly good in the election administration portions of the bill and what might be changed to meet the well-intended goals without the, likely unintended, unnecessary detailed requirements and consequences.

Yesterday in <Part 1> we covered our three greatest concerns with the election administration portions of H.R.1: U.S. House Resolution 1, “For the People Act of 2021” <read H.R.1> Here we will cover the rest of our major concerns, these alone argue that the bill should not be passed without a number of major and minor changes:

In states, like Connecticut, with an elected Chief Election Official (in CT Secretary of the State), when they are on the ballot, they are required to step aside and appoint someone else to perform their role for the election – appoint someone who does not report to them. For instance, if Denise Merrill were to run for reelection in 2022, under H.R.1, she would need to do that. Its a complex job to learn and in Connecticut there are few sufficiently knowledgeable or experienced individuals who could quickly step in – even less individuals willing to stop what they are doing and take over a more than full time job. Worse that would apply to all future Secretaries of the State. Perhaps many future Secretaries would choose for the benefit of election management, limit themselves to a single term. The voters of the State might well suffer from missing the benefits of an experienced Secretary of the State.
H.B.1 requires that drop box ballots be counted like early voting ballots. Instead, they are normally counted like absentee ballots, yet this law seems to preclude that. Early voting ballots are normally provided to voters in person, voters who fill them out in the early voting place, have an opportunity to replace them to re-vote, and then the voter feeds them into a scanner. Perhaps this is just an oversight, yet it needs to be corrected or clarified.
H.B.1 also requires that drop boxes be accessible to all those with disabilities. It would be straight-forward to make them accessible to those who use wheelchairs, yet presumably there other disabilities where that would be all but impossible and prohibitively expensive, e.g. to provide independent access to a severely limited paraplegic.
In a similar vein, H.B.1 requires that all those with disabilities be a able to vote independently and privately. While that is a laudable goal it is all but impossible to serve everyone, with every actual disability, or combination of disabilities. While this is required the bill recognizes the limitations of actually available products when it, laudably, offers grants for researching such solutions.
H.B.1 requires Election Day Registration at every early voting site. That is certainly a convenience for voters, yet we point out it is another significant additional amount of work both for early voting place officials and for registrars in Connecticut.
The bill requires that voting arrangements should be such that for election day and for early voting that voters must not ever have to wait more than 30 minutes in line. Anyone familiar with queuing theory would know that to achieve that is all but impossible. Election officials have no way of predicting when and how many voters will arrive at a polling place or early voting center, especially when polling places open on election day and the 1st day of early voting. I have served at polling places in Connecticut where the only line over five minutes was at 6:00am. The 1st time I served in Nov 2008 the media hyped up that voting would be difficult with long lines, we had a 6:00am backup that was about 20 min – it could have been much longer, most of the rest of the day. we were mostly idle. In Nov 2020 and the Jan 2021 run-off in Georgia there were many stories of long lines in Georgia and other states on the 1st day of early voting, the stories seemed to go away after that initial crush. I agree that voters should not have to wait in lines for long times and generally less than 30 minutes, yet that is absolutely impossible to guarantee. Worse, there are unpredictable problems that take time to cure that could interrupt or slowdown voting e.g. ePollbook and voting machine breakdowns, sick pollworkers, power and internet failures, broken water pipes etc.
Another provision requires IDs on some ballots to identify the voter with their ballot. This is violates the, so called, Secret Ballot, or as the Connecticut Constitution calls the right of secret voting. Any method of linking a voter to a ballot should be illegal, rather than mandatory. Note that a ballot package with such an ID on an outer or inner envelope is fine, as long as the process does not result in an opportunity for the ballot to be read while still linked to such an envelope.
Finally, the bill has very strong enforcement provisions that go well beyond what we have in Connecticut. We have Secretary of the State’s Office’s hot lines, Election Enforcement hot lines, Elections Enforcement processes, and the opportunity for redress in the courts. A small error by an official should normally be referred to the processes we have now, yet this law would provide extensive legal recourse for a voter who had to wait in line more than 30 minutes, a single voter with disabilities who could not be served independently and privately, a single voter with disabilities unable to use a drop box unaided, a single voter not receiving an absentee ballot when they applied as late as five days before election day, etc. Who would want to be a pollworker, registrar or clerk under such potential risk?

What’s the matter with H.R.1, Part 1

H.R.1: U.S. House Resolution 1, “For the People Act of 2021”. It is a 790 page omnibus election reform bill supported largely by Democrats. There is a companion bill in the U.S. Senate.

It is endorsed by a huge number of good government groups. I wonder how many have read it in detail and understand its ramifications? Like many such bills it has some good provisions and some not so good provisions. I have read only those portions having to do with voting and election administration, about half the bill, pp78-407 – areas where I can claim a level of expertise. I have also spent hours with a team of experts reviewing those provisions in further detail.

Be careful what you endorse! All of this bill is well-intended, yet not all workable.

In this 1st post I will concentrate on just three concerns that make it especially tough for states like Connecticut. Overall in its voting and election administration sections one could say it seems to be intended to make all states voting more like California and Colorado which encourage voters to vote by mail, while offering extensive early (in-person) voting, along with polling place voting.

First, overall its too much too quickly. Overall we estimate doubling to quadrupling election costs in our cities and towns...

H.R.1: U.S. House Resolution 1, “For the People Act of 2021” <read H.R.1> It is a 790 page omnibus election reform bill supported largely by Democrats. There is a companion bill in the U.S. Senate.

Be careful what you endorse! All of this bill is well-intended, yet not all workable.

First, overall its too much too quickly. Most of its provisions apply to all Federal elections (Federal races*) starting with November 2022, others apply by January 2022. Most previsions apply to Federal elections, primaries, run-offs, and special elections. For a state like Connecticut, you will see that it will be ongoingly expensive and in the near term challenging to implement so much. Overall we estimate doubling to quadrupling election costs in our cities and towns.

Second, significant changes in absentee voting. H.R.1 would allow all citizens the opportunity to vote by mail, yet with significant additions that will be especially challenging for Connecticut. It will mandate that mail-in packets must be processed if they are postmarked by election day** and received within 10 days after the election. Then if such ballot packages are rejected (for instance without a signature), voters must be notified and given at least 10 days to ‘cure’ (correct) the problem. That might sound good and fair, however:

Currently Connecticut law requires all ballots to be counted, recounted, and finalized within 10 days of the election. For state races, that 10 day deadline is in the Connecticut Constitution. So, in November 2022 and thereafter for every even year, the deadlines for Federal races would have to change to about 30 days after the election. State laws and election procedures should be changed to account for all requirements and to correct all subsequent deadlines (i.e. swearing into office) to conform to those Federal requirements, at least for even-year and other Federal elections. That’s all tall order to complete in, at most, a year and a half. Yet there is more. Federal law can not override our Constitution for state contests, so every two years, until our Constitution is changed we would have to effectively run two elections, with two deadlines for accepting ballots, counting ballots, calling and completing recounts (actually recanvasses in Connecticut). Realistically the earliest a Constitutional amendment could pass would be 2024, to be in effect in 2026. Connecticut could keep some or all of our current laws and deadlines for municipal races, yet that would create additional challenges and confusion for voters and for officials. Plus for the Federal races there would be no-excuse absentee voting, yet under our Constitution only absentee ballots for those with excuses could be counted for all other contests. So that would likely require two absentee ballots, one type for those with excuses, and another for those without an excuse that has only the Federal races.

The law also makes election officials responsible for the delivery of absentee ballots to individuals requesting them five days or more before the election. What about the elderly person who cannot use the Internet who requests a ballot five days before? What is an election official to do, but deliver it by hand?

Third, gargantuan early voting requirements.
Background: Connecticut does not have in-person early voting. In the past proposed Constitutional amendments have allowed the General Assembly to mandate a maximum of five or eight days of early voting in a specified period prior to an election or primary. In California there are currently 11 days of early voting, even that seems to be overkill for California, where 70% of voters mail-in their ballots, 20% vote on election day, and just 10% vote on those 11 days of early voting. Statistics are similar in Colorado.

H.R.1 would mandate a minimum of 15 days of early voting, not just any days, but each of the 15 days before election day and election day itself. It would mandate at least 10 hours a day of early voting, with all days required to be the exact same hours. And that early voting must use the same methods as election day voting, e.g. check-in lines, scanners, etc. So even the smallest, single polling-place towns in Connecticut would have to staff an early voting site for 15 days, with a minimum of six pollworkers, before election day and on election day. By my estimates likely contributing to quadrupling election costs for some towns, in an already busy period for registrars and clerks. Perhaps ‘only’ tripling costs for mid-size municipalities, and ‘only’ doubling them for large cities. Another implication is that because early voting hours must be the same every day, early voting could not be open early some days, late other days, and vary for weekend days. Finally, if you desire to use an early voting location to double as an election day polling place that would mean all early voting hours would need to be from 6:00am to 8:00pm – most small one-polling place towns would find it easier to have two venues open on election day rather than do 15 days of 6:00am to 8:00pm. Staffing 15 days of 10 hour (actually 12 hours for staff) early voting would seem to require at least three crews plus registrars and clerks available.

This is perhaps the bulk of the work, yet not the end of H.R.1 and requirements that seem to have been written without the benefit of consulting those who have to implement them. Read <Part 2> and <Part 3>.

*We try to use ‘race’ when we mean a race for office and ‘contest’ when we mean both a race or a question on the ballot. When it comes to Federal elections, there are only races.

** For the most part when we use ‘election’ in this post we mean election, primary, run-off, or special election.

The Case Against Trusting Democracy to BMDs

Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) are under consideration by several states for use for all in-person voting. They have paper ballots, “What could possibly go wrong?”. A recent paper makes the case that they cannot be audited or trusted to provide accurate results. The paper recommends that they should be limited to use by voters that need accessibility: Ballot-marking devices (BMDs) cannot assure the will of the voters

not only is it inappropriate to rely on voters to check whether BMDs alter expressed votes, it doesn’t work.

Yet, this paper has been very controversial in election integrity circles. Advocates for those with disabilities argue that everyone should vote the same way on the same equipment, because that is what is needed to provide equality, to incentivize and cause better BMDs that meet everyone’s needs including those for evidence based elections.

..paper ballots provide no assurance unless they accurately record the vote as the voter expresses it. Voters can express their intent by hand-marking a ballot with a pen, or using a computer called a ballot-marking device (BMD),which generally has a touchscreen and assistive interfaces. Voters can make mistakes in expressing their intent in either technology, but only the BMD is also subject to systematic error from computer hacking or bugs in the process of recording the vote on paper, after the voter has expressed it. A hacked BMD can print a vote on the paper ballot that differs from what the voter expressed, or can omit a vote that the voter expressed…

Research shows that most voters do not review paper ballots printed by BMDs, even when clearly instructed to check for errors. Furthermore,most voters who do review their ballots do not check carefully enough to notice errors that would change how their votes were counted…There is no action that a voter can take to demonstrate to election officials that a BMD altered their expressed votes, and thus no way voters can help deter, detect, contain, and correct computer hacking in elections. That is, not only is it inappropriate to rely on voters to check whether BMDs alter expressed votes, it doesn’t work.

The entire paper is readable and makes a complete case for its conclusions.

Simply stated Georgia, Pennsylvania, and other states seeking accurate, credible elections need paper ballots, sufficient post-election audits, ballot protection, and Voter-Marked Paper Ballots. BMDs are insufficient and cost several times more.

Editorial

We completely agree with the paper’s conclusions. Overall there is nothing new here, except an extensive review and clarification of older and recent work.

We are sympathetic to the needs of those with disabilities. We need better interfaces and BMDs to serve them better. Yet, spending triple on inadequate equipment is not the path forward.

As long as we have absentee voting, we will have voter marked paper ballots, as long as BMDs use multiple interfaces, all voters will not vote the same way.

Better that money and effort be spent on research and innovation, than on excessive purchases of inadequate equipment. Where is the incentive for vendors to innovate when election officials can be, all but, mandated to buy the inadequate equipment on the market? The only incentive would be for multiple rounds of modestly better BMDs followed by multiple rounds of expensive replacements.

Beware the costly solution that does not solve the problem

WhoWhatWhy: Will Georgia Double Down on Non-Transparent, Vulnerable Election Machines?

Georgia’s newly elected secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger (R), hopes to replace them not with hand-marked paper ballots and scanners (as virtually all independent cybersecurity election experts recommend), but rather with touchscreen ballot-marking devices,..In addition to security concerns, all touchscreen systems tend to cause long lines…The ExpressVote system also would cost taxpayers more than three times as much as hand-marked paper ballots and scanners:? an estimated $100 million as opposed to $30 million.

A system only greedy vendors and fraudsters would love.

******Update: Verified Voting Statement to Georgia

As we have been warning, paper records from DRE (touch Screen) voting machines are not the equivalent of hand-marked paper ballots.

WhoWhatWhy: Will Georgia Double Down on Non-Transparent, Vulnerable Election Machines? <read>

The good news is that Georgia, which was the first state in the country to deploy paperless machines statewide, has finally decided to replace these machines. But Georgia’s newly elected secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger (R), hopes to replace them not with hand-marked paper ballots and scanners (as virtually all independent cybersecurity election experts recommend), but rather with touchscreen ballot-marking devices, a prime example of which is the ExpressVote system from Election Systems & Software, LLC (ES&S). The ExpressVote is the specific system that Governor-elect Brian Kemp (R) began promoting last year. ES&S is Georgia’s current vendor.

Like other touchscreen barcode balloting systems, the ExpressVote generates computer-marked paper printouts (Kemp and many others misleadingly call them “paper ballots”) with barcodes that are then counted on scanners. Although these paper printouts include human-readable text purporting to summarize the voter’s selections, the barcode, which humans can’t read, is the only part of the printout actually counted by the scanner. According to computer science professor Richard DeMillo of the Georgia Institute of Technology, the barcode constitutes a new potential target for malevolent actors, as it can be manipulated to instruct the scanner to flip or otherwise alter votes…

In addition to security concerns, all touchscreen systems tend to cause long lines because they limit the number of people who can vote at once to the number of touchscreens at the polling place…

The ExpressVote system also would cost taxpayers more than three times as much as hand-marked paper ballots and scanners:? an estimated $100 million as opposed to $30 million.

A system only greedy vendors and fraudsters would love.

******Update: Verified Voting Statement to Georgia <read>

Courant Editorial Misses the Mark on At Least Three of Five Points

On Sunday the Hartford Courant lead Editorial proposed fixes to its perceived problems with Connecticut’s election system: 5 Fixes For State’s Broken Election System. Note that all the statewide races were decided by 8:00am on Wednesday morning after the election.

To the Courant’s credit, for the second time in a row, they published a letter of mine criticizing an editorial.

Proposed Fixes Could Make Problems Worse

The editorial “Five Fixes for State’s Broken Election System” misses the mark on at least three of its five proposals

On Sunday the Hartford Courant lead Editorial proposed fixes to its perceived problems with Connecticut’s election system: 5 Fixes For State’s Broken Election System <read>

We say perceived problem, since the newspaper’s concern is for quicker results to feed the Courant and other impatient media:

Connecticut is a slowpoke on election results compared to other states. This will not do. Voters need to know on election night who their new governor is. They shouldn’t have to wait till the next morning.
Here are a few ways for the state to catch up with the rest of the nation…

1. Take humans out of it… 2. Stop using pens and rulers… 3. Send in state help… 4. Appoint professionals… 5. Vote Earlier.

Note that all the statewide races were decided by 8:00am on Wednesday morning after the election.

To the Courant’s credit, for the second time in a row, they published a letter of mine criticizing an editorial. The letter is slightly modified from the one I sent after extensive fact checking by Carolyn Lumsden, Opinion Editor, and a couple of emails back and forth. It makes the same points as the original. I would only quibble with a bit of grammar. I said as much as I could in keeping the letter within the size that the Courant usually publishes.

Proposed Fixes Could Make Problems Worse

The editorial “Five Fixes for State’s Broken Election System” misses the mark on at least three of its five proposals [courant.com, Nov. 11].

It suggests that early voting would provide quicker results. Is The Courant aware that California, Colorado, Georgia and Florida all have early voting and were still counting mail-in votes on Saturday? In fact, California counts mail-in votes for weeks after each election.

The Courant proposes following Philadelphia by using memory cards to accumulate results. Philadelphia is one of the notorious areas of the country with paperless direct-recording electronic voting machine, or DRE. Using memory cards to total results in Connecticut in any reasonable time frame would entail connecting memory cards to the internet, which would risk hacking, a risk that Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has steadfastly and appropriately avoided.

There are some benefits to electronic poll books, yet there are also risks that must be mitigated. Electronic poll books have proved in some places to slow down check-ins, requiring more lines; there must be paper backup and effective contingency plans when poll books fail, as they did in a North Carolina county in 2016.

Professionalization may be part of a solution, yet any solution brings its own challenges. I would support professionalization as part of regionalization of elections, so that professionals are not appointed and funded by partisan local government. A part-time or individual professional would be insufficient to conduct professional elections in our small towns. There are real challenges, money can help, yet we need a thorough, rational top-to-bottom review that considers best practices from other states and countries.

There was also an excellent letter on Tuesday from Fred DeCaro III, Republican Registrar of Voters from Greenwich. DeCaro expands on the reasons why replacing two registrars in a town by a single town appointed official is not a good idea.

Bipartisan Registrar System Is Fairer

Every election season, The Hartford Courant likes to complain because writers don’t have the results in time to get their beauty sleep [editorial, Nov. 6, “Editorial: Governor Results Take Too Long”].

The logical leap for Courant editorialists is that we need to get rid of our system of two registrars per town, one from each of the two major parties, and replace it with “one professional nonpartisan registrar per town.”

Because things would go faster and with fewer errors if one person typed in the numbers instead of two? I suppose the news would get printed faster if The Courant didn’t use fact-checkers, too.

I’m sure Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim would love to be able to appoint his own personal registrar. And if his appointee doesn’t get him the results he wants, he can swap the registrar out. Kind of like President Trump and the head of the FBI. Eventually both will find a candidate sufficiently “nonpartisan.”

Having two individuals of different viewpoints checking each other is common sense. Financial institutions are required to have dual control. Most states have boards of elections, which are bipartisan. Having a Democratic and a Republican registrar in every municipality is Connecticut’s method of making certain that all actions with regard to an election are measured.

The fastest election results can be found in Brazil, which uses an all-electronic system with no paper ballots, electronic transmission and the added benefit of recording your fingerprints before you vote. No public watchdogs are allowed to examine the proprietary code. You vote or you pay a fee.

I’ll stick with paper ballots and wait a little longer for the results. And I’ll sleep more restfully as a result.

I also had a short, related Facebook exchange with Essie Labrot, Town Clerk of West Hartford, which clarifies my concerns with undue haste and expanded absentee balloting:

Essie Labrot As a Town Clerk, my office issued over 3,000 absentee ballots. We need to change the statutes to allow counting of them earlier than 10 am on election day. Also, streamline the application process for AB’s (including acceptance of electronic signatures). Reliance on mail system leaves ballot errors and late applications missed votes.

Luther Weeks or change the law like CA, CO, FL, GA … to allow counts to go on days or weeks after Election Day. That would also entail adjusting recancass dates.

Essie Labrot I don’t think candidates would want to wait weeks for final results..our state is much smaller than those who have all mail voting..and county based.

Luther Weeks I was not suggesting weeks. Maybe 2 days. The law already provides 48 hours for polling places, except for reporting the tape [which is supposed to be completed on election night]. There are other risks and issues with the law in starting [counting absentee ballots] before Election Day. Many states give voters time to cast in person on Election Day to override their AB. For different reasons we give them until 10:00am [on election day]. Also the dead voter rule [which requires pulling of absentee ballots for voters not alive on election day]. Lots of choices and associated issues to consider with any change!

Essie Labrot absolutely! Looking forward to seeing you at the Capitol..

One real problem in this election was the civil rights violation that is our Election Day Registration system’s 8:00 cutoff, see: <Connecticut dodges EDR bullet. How long will EDR dodge the Civil Rights bullet?>

See a problem, propose a solution you want that might make the problem worse

There were long lines for Election Day Registration (EDR) and it took a whole 10 hours to count enough votes to determine the Governor in Connecticut. Our EDR is a problem, but waiting ten hours for result is just a concern hyped up by a overly impatient press and used as a opportunity by advocates to promote early voting as a solution.

As of this time the states of California, Colorado, Florida, and Georgia are still counting votes. They all have mail-in early voting. California has a Friday deadline to receive mail-in ballots postmarked by election day and counts them for weeks after election day. As of Friday all those other states were still counting.

There real are problems and there are reasonable solutions.

An example is this article in the CTPost: Changes to Connecticut’s voting laws could streamline elections<read>

It took nearly 10 hours after the polls closed for Connecticut voters to learn who won the hard-fought race for governor, and by the time Ned Lamont was named the next governor, voters were beginning a new day.

It’s not the first time election results have been delayed — Connecticut’s cities have developed a reputation for holding up the process — but with a broader majority in the state Legislature, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill hopes changes in the state’s voting laws could be on the horizon.

Merrill plans to again propose a change to allow early voting, as well as create no-excuses absentee voting. She also plans to propose automatic registration for 16-year-olds, who could be registered when they visit the state Department of Motor Vehicles for their learners permits.

“There’s more optimism for passing early voting,” said Gabe Rosenberg, a spokesman for Merrill’s office. “I think that there’s a real hunger for early voting. So many people want to vote early, especially when they see how many people in other states do it.”

Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia allow early voting in person, which cuts down lines on Election Day, especially in highly populated cities, and helps results come in faster. A record 36 million people across the nation voted ahead of Election Day.

That last statement is blatantly untrue. As of this time the states of California, Colorado, Florida, and Georgia are still counting votes. They all have mail-in early voting. California has a Friday deadline to receive mail-in ballots postmarked by election day and counts them for weeks after election day. As of Friday all those other states were still counting.

It seems that whenever there is an apparent problem, the Connecticut response is to claim that the cure is whatever you have been proposing all along. There real are problems and there are reasonable solutions:

EDR is a problem caused by a too restrictive process unique to Connecticut. And by the Secretary of the State unilaterally declaring that persons in line at 8:00pm for EDR have no right to an opportunity to register and vote. <see our coverage and opinions>

Yes, New Haven and many towns in Connecticut should spend more on staffing polling places and EDR for these large elections.

However, New Haven should be applauded for taking the necessary time to count votes by hand that could not be counted by machine. Perhaps they should even have given their pollworkers more time to rest and resume counting, extending the time to get accurate results to maybe 24 hours.

Compare New Haven 2018 to Bridgeport in 2010 where, under pressure, they rushed hand counting and missed many votes in a somewhat comparable emergency. Those votes were counted by the CTPost and the Citizen Audit – yet were never counted or recognized by the Official system. <read>

How Could CT Spend New Federal Election Security Money?

Connecticut will have available somewhere around $5 million to spend on election security in the new “omnibus” appropriations bill. Woefully inadequate for states that should be replacing touch-screen voting with all paper ballots. etc., for a state that already has paper ballots, a lot can be accomplished.

Denise Merrill is already thinking about how to spend it: CTMirror: Omnibus has millions to strengthen CT voting system against cyber attacks.

Secretary Merrill asked me for suggestions in a brief conversation a couple of weeks ago. At the time, off the top of my head, I suggested and we briefly discussed three things. After consideration I would suggest some more things. Security is not just cyber security and training officials. It also requires physical protection of ballots, physical protection of voting machines, and understanding the situation before determining the training needed.

Connecticut will have available somewhere around $5 million to spend on election security in the new “omnibus” appropriations bill. Woefully inadequate for states that should be replacing touch-screen voting with all paper ballots. Yet, for a state that already has paper ballots, a lot can be accomplished.

Explanatory Statement on Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018
House Appropriations Committee; Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., 3/21/2018

ELECTION REFORM PROGRAM

The bill provides $380,000,000 to the Election Assistance Commission to make payments to states for activities to improve the administration of elections for Federal office, including to enhance election technology and make election security improvements, as authorized under HAVA sections 101 [Payments to States for activities to improve administration of elections], 103 [Guaranteed minimum payment amount], and 104 [Authorization of appropriations] of the Help America Vote Act 2002 (P.L. 107-252). Consistent with the requirements of HAVA, states may use this funding to:

replace voting equipment that only records a voter’s intent electronically with equipment that utilizes a voter-verified paper record;

implement a post-election audit system that provides a high-level of confidence in the accuracy of the final vote tally;

>upgrade election-related computer systems to address cyber vulnerabilities identified through DHS or similar scans or assessments of existing election systems;

facilitate cybersecurity training for the state chief election official’s office and local election officials;

implement established cybersecurity best practices for election systems;

and fund other activities that will improve the security of elections for federal office.

Denise Merrill is already thinking about how to spend it: CTMIrror:Omnibus has millions to strengthen CT voting system against cyber attacks <read>

Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill has asked the state to fund two IT positions at her agency to help strengthen protections of the state’s electoral system. Currently the state’s election system relies on an IT team that works for all state agencies.

Merrill says she wants an IT staff “with substantial knowledge of elections” to help fend off cyber threats.

The election chief’s request is pending.

The federal funds in the omnibus, which Merrill says will amount to between $3 million and $5 million for her agency, will be released within 45 days.

Merrill said she plans to use that money to buy equipment, and especially to train election personnel in the state’s 169 towns.

Secretary Merrill asked me for suggestions in a brief conversation a couple of weeks ago. At the time, off the top of my head, I suggested and we briefly discussed three things:

Strengthening Connecticut’s woefully inadequate ballot security. At a minimum setting basic standards for ballot access and minimum sealing duration in law as I suggested in legislation: <S.B.540 2017> That was indeed a minimal proposal at an estimated cost of $30,000.
Improving the Electronic Audit to satisfy reasonable integrity requirements as we have proposed in that same bill and in more detailed form to the Secreary’s Office and the UConn Voter Center. Once again this is very few thousands in enhancing some of the prototype code UConn has developed to meet those specifications along with a few thousands in developing documentation while piloting the enhanced system as the current system has been piloted over the last two November elections.
Developing the training and support system necessary to use the UConn audit system for all post-election audits – with a trained staff to support the audits deployed across state in the nine regional governments, reducing the need for UConn computer scientist support. I.e. The state has already purchased nine complete systems, that is one for each region of the state. I have suggested training election day scanner experts for the job in a system similar to the way the State now pays part-time registrars additional part-time income providing Moderator Certification classes. I would deploy teams of two trained individuals with three complete audit systems (two to use, one a spare) to each visit three regions for three days each, allowing registrars from towns selected for audit to signup for times to present the ballots for audit. At most $50,000 to setup the system and train the individuals (they could easily be trained, hands-on in one day, and perhaps assisted by a UConn expert the 1st day of actual auditing.) The cost to pay for each year, renting a van for each team, refresher training, etc. Might be $30,000 – that’s about half what the hand-count audit costs today. Certainly for cutting costs in half, towns could be expected to pay for the service after a couple years of Omnibus funding!.

After consideration I would suggest some more things. Security is not just cyber security and training officials. It also requires physical protection of ballots, physical protection of voting machines, and understanding the situation before determining the training needed. I would suggest:

An independent security audit of every one of the 169 municipalities, performed by a reputable third-party. I would assess the security of paper ballots – how sure can we be that they have not been tampered with for audits and recounts?; the security of voting machines and memory cards; the security of registrars’ office records and municipal clerk election records; the security practices surrounding receipt and processing of absentee ballots; the security practices and security of the elections network associated with the voter registration system and the municipal network in general. At a minimum assess a random sample of very small, small, medium, and large municipalities.
Based on that assessment make recommendations for the training of officials and further enhancements of all areas assessed (I suspect needs will be identified that go well beyond the $5 million.

In the long run, beyond the $5 million, the optional solution for ballot storage may be some configuration regional storage with better monitoring and safeguards that can be accomplished by 169 individual municipalities. Such rationalization would facilitate the audits and would also provide a basis for, so called. risk limiting audits.

What is wrong with CT’s Election Day Registration

Late last month, we testified on a bill, S.B. 250 that would modify Connecticut’s Election Day Registration (EDR) law. We did not testify for or against the proposed change, clearly aimed at making life easier for registrars and election day workers* at the expense of convenience to the public. It would curtail EDR at 7:00pm rather than 8:00pm currently in place. This change would be a disservice to voters by not only curtailing hours, but for the many that are likely to assume that EDR is open until 8:00pm like polling places. Yet there are larger problems with Connecticut’s EDR law and procedures implemented by the Secretary of the State. Here are several of those problems:

As I testified, it is a Civil Rights/Voting Rights violation waiting to happen. The problem is that the Secretary of the State’s procedures require that those in line at 8:00pm cannot have the opportunity to register and vote. Actually it has already happened as we had long predicted, yet was not acted upon on behalf of those denied a fair opportunity to register and vote. From the comments by the Committee during the hearing, it seems they get the problem, if not the complete understanding of a risk of an embarrassing Federal suit.
An EDR location is not a polling place. So, anyone can walk in and talk to or solicit voters in the EDR location; signs required to be posted at polling places such as ballots, voters bill of rights etc. are not required to be posted; votes are not submitted to scanners, increasing the odds that the new voters will overvote unintentionally; the leader is not required to be a Certified Moderator; and who knows what else?
It only applies to Election Day. That is right, it does not apply to this coming Presidential Preference Primary or any of the highly charged primaries we have from time to time for Governor, Senator, or Representative. I addition to preventing citizens from voting in those primaries, it could be a vehicle to bring more voters into the process, initiating a lifetime of participation.
It risks chaos in a not so sunny November or for a local power/internet outage. One of the Secretary of the State’s proudest accomplishments if a requirement for emergency plans and an associated Model Plan. Unfortunately, the Model Plan has no contingency for EDR. We point out that EDR is very special – it requires access to a functioning Central Voter Registration System (CVRS) to register voters – it requires access to a phone system to connect with registrars’ offices throughout the state. Without that system there is no guidance on a contingency. Do all registrations stop? Do registrations continue, but votes held for checking with other towns and the CVRS when the situation is corrected?Should there be a contingency including a complete printed CVRS list for each town? That way if the CVRS goes down that list could be used. (The CVRS regularly goes down or officials get locked out based on high volume or other problems. e.g. It went down in the fall of 2015 on the very last day when officials were required to print voter lists for the Nov election).
It is not the system so successful in other states. Most states with EDR allow registration in any polling place, trusting the voter and large penalties for voting in more than one place. We are doing something different than other states, inconveniencing voters, making more work for officials and expecting the same increase in turn-out.

Let me end on a positive note. Twice I have lead the EDR function in my town. It is a very positive experience seeing citizens register to vote. Citizens willing to accept the hassles of EDR to participate in Democracy. Also to see voters who, through no error of their own, thrown off the registration system give us the opportunity to successfully fix the problem.

* Individuals working at EDR sites are not “pollworkers” since the law is very clear that EDR is not conducted at a polling place.

Time to Hold ’em – Connecticut’s voting machines

San Francisco provides another reason for Connecticut to wait before considering new voting machines: San Francisco Examiner: San Francisco sets sights on open source voting by November 2019 <read>

“San Francisco could help write some U.S. democracy history with its leadership role,” said a Nov. 18 letter to the Elections Commission from Gregory Miller, co-founder of the Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation, a collection of executives from top technology companies like Apple and Facebook. “And the total estimated cost to do so [$8 million] is a fraction of status-quo alternatives.”

San Francisco could have an open-source voting system in place by the November 2019 election, under a plan approved earlier this month by the Elections Commission.

The timeline could result in the emergence of San Francisco as the leader of the open-source voting movement in the United States.

For supporters of open-source voting, the importance of that point can’t be underscored enough.

“San Francisco could help write some U.S. democracy history with its leadership role,” said a Nov. 18 letter to the Elections Commission from Gregory Miller, co-founder of the Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation, a collection of executives from top technology companies like Apple and Facebook. “And the total estimated cost to do so [$8 million] is a fraction of status-quo alternatives.”

Open-source voting systems bring a greater level of transparency and accountability by allowing the public to have access to the source codes of the system, which is used to tabulate the votes. A system owned by The City could also save taxpayers money…

We have said it before, No Crisis in CT unless we make one, there are few voting system options available today, expensive and, at best, incrementally better than the AccuVoteOS scanners we use in Connecticut. It is time to wait and see the results of efforts underway in Los Angeles County, CA, Travis County, TX, and now San Francisco. There will be dramatically better and more economical systems available in the next five to ten years for Connecticut to benefit from these pioneering efforts.

The Power of Partnership: Do you know what your election officials have been watching?

Direct from the Dominion web, a marketing video featuring Denver election officials.services from Dominion.

We recommend caution for election officials, along with concern and skepticism for voters and taxpayers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyqg-LcAkC0
Direct from the Dominion web, a marketing video featuring Denver election officials. The apparently intended message from the officials is “See how great we are. See all the great things we are doing for you voters, with your money.” The apparently intended message from Dominion is “See how happy we can make officials. We can make you look good for your voters too. If you play with us we will promote you.”

Yet, I hope the questions raised for voters in Denver and elsewhere are:

Where are the testimonials from happy voters or average voters recruited to test and provide feedback on the human factors.
Where are the evaluations from independent security experts, election integrity experts, and human factors experts?
Did wining and dining of officials have anything to do with the product selection or supper happy evaluation?
How much did this system cost or save for Denver?
Should voters question the integrity of this or any other future purchase of equipment and services from Dominion?

Reminds us of those travel promotion ads featuring Connecticut Governors that somehow tend to be shown during election season, touting the benefits of vacationing in Connecticut to residents of Connecticut. Or those register and vote billboards in that same season prominently featuring the Secretary of the State.

We recommend caution for election officials, along with concern and skepticism for voters and taxpayers.