Costs

CT: Courant: “How Stupid Is This?”

By Luther Weeks on November 8, 2008

Update 1/27/2008:Â Courant cartoon incorrectly characterizes Editorial Board view as geek view <view> *****************Original Post******************* Courant Editorial: Three Registrars Is Too Many, Unfunded Mandate Dumb law sticks it to Hartford <read> How stupid is this? Hartford is in such dire fiscal straits that it has had to lay off or retire scores of workers this […]

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Downsizing Newspaper Recommends Downsizing Registrars

By Luther Weeks on September 30, 2008

Most of us would agree that Central Connecticut needs more than one daily newspaper. If there was any doubt it certainly was erased this week. On Monday the “New” Hartford Courant came out with its latest and most drastic downsizing. On Tuesday an editorial suggesting among other things that we should have a single elected […]

Posted in Costs, CT Law, National, Other Editorials | 3 Responses

The Future Of Post-Election Auditing? – Faster, More Economical, Greater Confidence

By Luther Weeks on September 14, 2008

Can we audit or recount by machine, rather than hand-counting? My conditional answer remains a strong NO. However, as we have discussed before it is quite possible in theory to develop voting machines or auxiliary scanners with capabilities that can greatly reduce the cost, while increasing the integrity of audits, and increasing the confidence in […]

Posted in Costs, National, Post-Election Audits | 2 Responses

Caught Between The Glitches and The Gotyas

By Luther Weeks on August 29, 2008

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 […]

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via Outsourcing: Democracy is Lost

By Luther Weeks on August 23, 2008

A report this week from VotersUnite.org describes the devastating damage caused by outsourcing our elections and giving over complete control to vendors: Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections A VotersUnite report on the current situation and how to reclaim elecitons — in 2008 and beyond The report comes with an Executive Summary A […]

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Election Costs $ – Democracy? Priceless!

By Luther Weeks on August 14, 2008

We have said that conducting elections cost from $5.00 to $20.00 per ballot cast and that our estimate of $0.20 to $0.50 for an audit is a small price to pay to assure that the votes are counted as the voters intended. But the news from Norwalk indicates we may need to revise the high-end […]

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Feinstein to Voters: Waste $, jeopardize Democracy.

By Luther Weeks on July 27, 2008

Update: Take Action: E-Mail our Senators to oppose S. 3212 <read and send> This is especially important because Senator Dodd is on the committee and the hearing is this week! The well intentioned but flawed 2002 Help America Vote Act launched the large scale move to electronic voting. Many states have paperless DREs (Touch Screens), […]

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Testing/Inspecting For Democracy Is Too Much Work

By Luther Weeks on July 15, 2008

Why bother inspecting restaurants, bridges, trucks, and voting machines? It is just too difficult and costly. While Connecticut is way behind in inspecting restaurants as we have been with bridges and trucks, we fit right into the trend evidenced by two national stories – the Election Assistance Commission finds its just too hard on vendors […]

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Senators Feinstein and Bennett Plan To Unite Voting Integrity Advocates

By Luther Weeks on May 25, 2008

Another effort in a long history of knee-jerk reactions to address public concern with voting by throwing expensive, inadequate, unproven, and unnecessary technology at the problem. The better solution is a stronger “Holt” bill banning DRE’s, mandating paper ballots, and strong, effective audits. Senators Feinstein and Bennett issued a press release purporting to enhance voting […]

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Cost Of Touch Screens (Up To 8x The Cost of Op Scan)

By Luther Weeks on April 5, 2008

Kim Zetter covers the costs of touch screens in Maryland in the Wired article, The Cost of E-Voting, <read> We are proud of our support of optical scan for Connecticut. In addition to being safer and more auditable, they cost Connecticut about 1/2 as much to purchase and are even more economical to maintain and […]

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