Mail/Absentee Voting | CTVotersCount.org

Missing the point on solving Bridgeport elections problems

All sorts of elections proposals to solve the Bridgeport elections problems from increasing penalties to a minimum of a year in jail to a 17 member committee under the Secretary of the State to take over elections in municipalities.

They are all missing the point. What we need is …

They are all missing the point. What we need is enforcement!

The penalties already are high enough but there all but no enforcement. As allegations rise, not just in Bridgeport, but all over the state, including campaign finance violations by candidates and other political entities the size of the staff for State Elections Enforcement Commission has slowly been eroded over the years. There are all sorts of allegations in Bridgeport. If even each violation were merely fined $5oo (let alone penalties are much higher including jail time) then several criminals would be facing fines of several thousands of dollars. Soon they and their actual and would-be associates would be completely deterred.

The SEEC has five investigators, one pulled back from retirement, with four of them full time on Bridgeport. That is not enough for timely investigations and a deterrent. There are previous cases referred to the U.S. Justice Department awaiting results for years. The chief culprit in Bridgeport is awaiting any action on allegations from 2019.

Nobody seems to be advocating for more staff for the SEEC. In comparison the Attorney General, admittedly with much more responsibility, has 200 attorneys plus investigators. Could it be that the General Assembly is reluctant to see investigations accelerated on campaign finance violations?

Meanwhile, maybe there should be some municipalities where the registrars responsibilities should be taken over by the State. Yet that will be quite a job for a 17 person committee which as about twice the size of the Secretary of the State’s elections staff. Who will fund the take overs? And what good would it do for a Bridgeport when the responsibility for absentee ballots lies mostly with the municipal clerk’s office? And even in Bridgeport the kind of fraud alleged in recent elections is mostly beyond the registrars and clerks control.

Don’t be deceived: Drop Boxes are more of a solution than a problem

Since the absentee ballot cheating in Bridgeport we have heard more and more calls for banning drop boxes. That is illogical.

This evidence was only possible because of video surveilled drop boxes. Without drop boxes and surveillance ballots could have been mailed through many post office boxes, from individual mail boxes, or just added to the system in city hall, somewhere between the mail room and the municipal clerk’s office.

The alternative would be unsurveilled mail boxes, sent through the mail, to the mail room, and then through some unknown system to the clerk’s office. Even if U.S. mail boxes were surveilled (which might be illegal for those in post offices or at homes) there would be no way of identifying what was mailed by particular individuals…

You can legitimately be concerned with the greater risks of mail balloting. Yet we all should recognize that drop boxes are a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

Since the absentee ballot cheating in Bridgeport we have heard more and more calls for banning drop boxes. That is illogical.

The culprit(s) were conclusively caught on video tape of a drop box outside of city hall, making multiple trips by the same person dropping in multiple envelopes into the same drop box. There was also much paper and statistical evidence pointing to likely a much larger number of fraudulent ballots, plenty to make it likely that the wrong winner was declared. The additonal evidence was partially related to the logging of daily drop box retrievals and reviewing the numbers of ballots unstamped, stamped, and cancelled.

The mail system is also more of a risk than drop boxes because of all the postal workers and contractors involved in collecting and delivering each piece of mail. Also because of all the city employees involved in distributing the mail from the mail room to the clerk’s office. Take Bridgeport, the city employee and campaign supporter caught using the drop boxes could have presumably put them in the system from postal boxes or somehow from the mail room and gotten away with it. Presumably the culprit(s) wanted to avoid paying for stamps.

Some have suggested that drop boxes be inside town halls and only available during business hours. That would be a solution to prevent people blowing up or stealing whole boxes (even though that has not proven to be a problem and at most would result in the theft of one day’s ballots – not the addition of many forged/fake ballots). It would also greatly inconvenience voters who want to submit ballots on the way to work, on the way home, or on the weekend. And still those drop boxes would need to be surveilled.

You can legitimately be concerned with the greater risks of mail balloting. Yet we all should recognize that drop boxes are a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

Betting on the SEEC to get to the bottom of Bridgeport AB issues

From the CTNewsJunkie: State Commission Probes Bridgeport Primary Amid Ballot Concerns

I’m betting on the SEEC to get to the bottom of Bridgeport AB issues This might be a bit of work, but straight-forward. We have long advocated against signature checking during AB counting as that is a very sophisticated process requiring experts and a lot more than one signature given years ago or electronically at the DMV. However the value of signatures on AB applications and AB envelopes is just for these cases of suspected mass insider AB fraud…

Republicans focus on eliminating drop-boxes is exactly what not to do. The drop-boxes are not the problem, they are part of the solution…

From the CTNewsJunkie: State Commission Probes Bridgeport Primary Amid Ballot Concerns <read>

The tedious job is going through the applications and envelopes probing for those that have been filled out by the same individual(s). Not looking just at signatures but first those that have been filled out by the same pens and then all the writing to see if it was done by the same person. 1st line up all the ballot envelopes by the date and time received by the Clerk, stamped as required by law. The same to the extent possible with when applications were received and the ballots logged as sent. I would start with those received on the day when the video shows an individual submitting several. Its a big job because all those ballots may not have been submitted on the same day and only by one individual. Once similar items are identified, the experts can get to work to assess and prove they were filled out by the same individual(s) and perhaps identify them.

The great thing here is the video. It is very likely the individual can be identified and charged. It is also unlikely that a single individual was involved. That one individual can be used to identify others who were likely part of a conspiracy, leading to convictions. The bigger job is showing the likelihood that enough illegal ballots were cast to have changed the result. It is also possible that a campaign did legal things to get a large AB turn-out to win an election, even if there were some illegal votes.

Republicans focus on eliminating drop-boxes is exactly what not to do. The drop-boxes are not the problem, they are part of the solution. The video’s of the drop-boxes is what is raising suspicion. For $0.66 per ballot they could be mailed in any post-office or mailbox (1000 for $666, a drop in the bucket for a Bridgeport mayoral campaign.) ABs are risky, yet at this shows it is possible to catch and punish large scale fraud (If indeed it occurred in this case.) Drop-boxes, well secured eliminates all the risks of regular mail from the mail box, through postal employees, postal contractors, and from the mail room in town hall to the Clerk’s Office, where the risks from drop-boxes are concentrated in the Clerk’s office which is only a part of the process with regular mail.

Testimony on two small, instructive bills

Last week I submitted testimony on two bills before the GAE (General Administration and Elections Committee.) (Read my testimony here)

This is likely the last time I will testify this year. Both of the bills seem minor, yet offered and opportunity to highlight errors and inconsistencies in the law that are overlooked and not addressed.

The first about collecting envelopes from drop boxes. There is no requirement for more than one person to collect the envelopes. There is no requirement that the collection and materials be logged. Who supports that ballots and other materials should be collected and transported by only one person, at any time?

The other making minor changes to the recanvass law, including requiring a training video from the Secretary of the State. I suggested several other changes, such as notifying all candidates, sending the video link along (so that everyone involved know the rules, and that one observer should be allowed per counting team.

When submitting testimony one can specify Support, Oppose, or General Comments. When signing up to speak the choices are Support or Oppose. I often wrestle with this. I know that some look just at how many support or oppose a bill. Here there is much missing, so I choose oppose.

Last week I submitted testimony on two bills before the GAE (General Administration and Elections Committee.) (Read my testimony here)

Testimony on Early Voting and Absentee Voting Bills

Yesterday I submitted testimony on four bills before the GAE (General Administration and Elections Committee.) (Read my testimony here)

I was pleased to learn that Secretary of the State, Stephanie Thomas generally agreed with me and that she called out my testimony in hers!

It was clear before I spoke that the Committee understood my main points, so I asked them to read the testimony and spent my three minutes discussing additional thoughts:

Yesterday I submitted testimony on four bills before the GAE (General Administration and Elections Committee.) (Read my testimony here)

I was pleased to learn that Secretary of the State, Stephanie Thomas generally agreed with me and that she called out my testimony in hers!

It was clear before I spoke that the Committee understood my main points, so I asked them to read the testimony and spent my three minutes discussing additional thoughts:

That if Absentee Ballots are made FOIable (I thought they were), we should post them to the Internet to save citizens from filing FOI requests and officials from processing them.
That my surveys show that our voting machines are NOT failing at an increased rate, and that this might be the worst time in history to replace them. (Because newer VVSG 2.0 machines will be available soon, making anything we buy today obsoleted soon as well.
Emphasizing that if they General Assembly had listened to me in 2013 then we could have avoided many of the problems, some that still remain with Election Day Registration – and that many of the same issues can occur with Early Voting and Same Day Registration, if they ignore similar suggestions in today’s testimony

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 5 – Choices and Disappointments

This is the fifth in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 4 – Electronic Pollbooks>

In this post we will cover the choices for implementing Early Voting facing the General Assembly along with the disappointments associated with each choice.

Disappointments are based on the expectations outlined in our first post. See <Part 1 – Expectations>

Option 1 – Fourteen or So Long Days of Early Voting Places…
Option 2 – Four to Six Days, Six to Seven-Hour Early Voting Days…
Option 3 – In-Person Absentee Voting…

Why follow California and Colorado to massive early in-person early voting for just 5% of voters who could all easily choose to vote by mail or on Election Day? Why not benefit/save from their experience, before they do? Start slow, gain experience, add mail-in voting, and learn from our own experience…

This is the fifth in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 4 – Electronic Pollbooks>

In this post we will cover the choices for implementing Early Voting facing the General Assembly along with the disappointments associated with each choice.

Disappointments are based on the expectations outlined in our first post. See <Part 1 – Expectations>

Option 1 – Fourteen or So Long Days of Early Voting Places

By this we mean, in general, following the request of the ACLU and the provisions of the For the People Act. Perhaps ten days or twenty-five. Likely requiring voting on at least two weekends including the Saturday and Sunday before Election Day. Open in the mornings and evening hours, at least during the week. Uniformity across the State. An early voting place similar to a polling place, i.e. checkin, ballot clerks, machine tenders and scanners – giving the voters who make overvotes the opportunity to spoil a ballot and vote another. Similar to what we see in other states, including CA, CO, GA, etc.

Disappointments:

Registrars and other election officials. In a small town with one polling place today. It will change the number of pollworker days from perhaps 8-10 to about 100! Finding citizens willing to work that many 16 to 17 hour days will be a challenge. Staffing, presumably, with inexperienced pollworkers will add to the challenges. Further it will be more difficult to find voting locations, especially during the week, that are not already used for other things and that have sufficient parking. It will greatly increase the stress and work for registrars as they do the normal work preparing for Election Day – especially tight preparing pollbooks between that last Sunday and Election Day. We expect many will join those that resigned in 2022. As an experienced pollworker, I doubt I could serve more than one or two 16 hour days in addition to Election Day.

Not much different in mid-size towns like mine, with six polling places and central count absentee, about 70 Election Day officials, this would add perhaps another 140 early voting polling place staffing days. That is plenty of novice officials, plenty of work for registrars, and stress. Including problems finding appropriate venues. Even for large cities it will be significant, perhaps doubling staffing.

The Public. Presumably many will want to try out early voting the first day that seems convenient and the last. So, there will likely be lines as we see in every election in Georgia. The public has been promised no more lines in Connecticut – yet there are none today, except for big problems like missing pollbooks, or at Election Day Registration. In fact, every option we discuss may have that same problem. It is especially likely for any option that opens early or closes late. Especially on that last Sunday if “Souls to the Polls” materializes in Connecticut.

Perhaps we should start slowly and if early voting is popular, work up to Option 1. More on that in the next two options, and in our final comment.

Option 2 – Four to Six Days, Six to Seven-Hour Early Voting Days

This is a compromise between satisfying the public’s expectations for polling place like voting places, but with fewer and shorter days for officials.

Four days, starting 10 days before Election Day: Saturday and Sunday 9:00am to 3:00pm, Tuesday 6:00am to 1:00pm, and Wednesday 2:00pm to 8:00pm. This would provide the possibility of election officials to do multiple days – a single Moderator (or with an Assistant) might be able to cover all these days and tabulate to votes on election night. Registrars would have more time to prepare pollbooks and otherwise for Election Day. Voters would have an opportunity to vote at any convenient time, weekend, early morning, after work, and at lunch time.

Six days, starting 10 days before Election Day: Saturday and Sunday 9:00am to 3:00pm, Monday and Tuesday 6:00am to 1:00pm, Wednesday and Thursday 2:00pm to 8:00pm. A bit more work, but more opportunities for voters.

Disappointments:

The Public. Who were expecting more days and will still see lines.

Election Officials. Who may be somewhat relieved but still face quite a bit of work and other challenges.

Option 3 – In-Person Absentee Voting

This would be voting very similar to the absentee voting that occurs today when one goes into a municipal clerk’s office, makes an application, votes, and hands in their absentee ballot. Except that any registered voter could do it. Clerks would need to be open on at least one weekend and in many cases open more hours than today, perhaps hiring one or two additional staff.

It would be more and less work for registrars and pollworkers. More checking-off of pollbooks between the end of early voting and election day. Today that happens on Friday and Monday before Election Day. As long as early voting ended before Friday, the only change would be more staffing for absentee checking and counting, with a somewhat smaller polling place staff on Election Day.

Some have suggested going to the registrars’ office and voting via machine for many hours of availability, yet that is really a variation on option 1, perhaps for small towns. It would still require Democrat and Republican Registrars or Deputies be present to correct registration errors, perhaps a checker, ballot clerk and definitely a machine tender all visible to each other and voters – not an option when you expect a volume of voters.

Disappointments:

The Public. Who were expecting that polling place like voting experience, the opportunity to be protected from overvoting, and the opportunity for correcting erroneously not being on the voters registration list – presumably that would require a call to the registrars office, visiting the registrars office when it was open, or requiring the registrars office to be open all the hours of early voting.

Once again, long lines are possible, especially if early morning or evening opportunities are limited and if on that last Sunday if “Souls to the Polls” materializes in Connecticut.

Finally, A Concern – The Experiences of California and Colorado

Many say the ideal for Connecticut should be California and Colorado. I would not emulate everything they do. They have ten or more days of early voting in vote centers, people can vote where they live or where they work, they have absentee voting, in fact they now send ballots to every voter to mail-in or drop off. Pretty close to the final draft of the For the People Act. They did not arrive there overnight. It has been perhaps 20-30 years in the making in each state.

Contrary to what the ACLU and Brennan Center would have us believe, we should not be trying to emulate the likes of Georgia, Florida and many other southern states that have the “Highest Early In Person Voting Rates” (see the map on page 3 of Brennan Center report, and the exclusion of California and Colorado from much of their report.) Those states have high in-person early voting apparently because they try to suppress absentee voting and do not provide enough polling places and voting machines on election day.

On the other hand, California and Colorado both seem to have the same experience. Until recently, the voters have chosen to use 70% main-in voting, 20% Election Day voting, and just 10% early voting. The latest trends in both states are closer to 90% mail-in voting.

As we have said, early in-person voting is expensive. If we are trending our policies toward California and Colorado, especially if we pass the 2024 constitutional amendment for no-excuse absentee voting in Connecticut. Why follow California and Colorado to massive early in-person early voting for just 5% of voters who could all easily choose to vote by mail or on Election Day? Why not benefit/save from their experience, before they do? Start slow, gain experience, add mail-in voting, and learn from our own experience.

A new twist: Fraud allegations added in Stamford

Earlier this week in Federal Court a former Stamford Democratic Chair was found guilty of absentee voting fraud: Former Stamford Democratic Chief Found Guilty of 28 Felonies in Ballot Fraud Case

For those not familiar with the case, suspicions started with a single voter attempting to vote in-person being told that he has already voted absentee, followed by a State Elections Enforcement Investigation leading to a referral to Federal investigators. The Dem Chair was indicted, while a former Republican Town Clerk turned state’s evidence and was not indicted.

But there was one surprising development in the trial:

Among the documents was a complaint sent to the FBI by a city official alleging improprieties in the town clerk’s office during the 2017 municipal election. Because of that, Randolph said he was obligated to inform the witnesses that they had the right not to testify because anything they said could be used against them by the FBI in its investigation.

Seeger said he’d planned to call Loglisci and two clerks that worked under her, Diane Pesiri and Maria Stabile, in his final chance to question them near the end of the trial. But Pesiri and Stabile declined to testify, as did Willy Giraldo, who also received ballots from Loglisci. After that, Seeger did not try to bring Loglisci or other witnesses to the stand.

Now there is more information: Stamford Clerk Warns FBI of Possible Ballot Fraud in Second Election

Earlier this week in Federal Court a former Stamford Democratic Chair was found guilty of absentee voting fraud: Former Stamford Democratic Chief Found Guilty of 28 Felonies in Ballot Fraud Case <read>

For those not familiar with the case, suspicions started with a single voter attempting to vote in-person being told that he has already voted absentee, followed by a State Elections Enforcement Investigation leading to a referral to Federal investigators. The Dem Chair was indicted, while a former Republican Town Clerk turned state’s evidence and was not indicted – this story says her crimes were less, not so sure

Mallozzi chose a court trial rather than a jury trial, so it was Randolph’s job to render a verdict.

One line in the judge’s decision seems to summarize his thinking on the case.

“By the defendant’s hand alone, 26 people could have had their civil right to vote extinguished,” Randolph said, reading his verdict into the record.

According to the trial record, 26 fraudulent absentee ballots were submitted to the town clerk’s office in a “scheme” involving Mallozzi and former Republican Town Clerk Donna Loglisci. The state, however, raised instances involving 14 voters, charging Mallozzi with 14 counts each of 2nd-degree forgery and false statement in absentee balloting.

Mallozzi, 72, could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison, or a fine that could total $140,000, or bo

But there was one surprising development in the trial:

Among the documents was a complaint sent to the FBI by a city official alleging improprieties in the town clerk’s office during the 2017 municipal election. Because of that, Randolph said he was obligated to inform the witnesses that they had the right not to testify because anything they said could be used against them by the FBI in its investigation.

Seeger said he’d planned to call Loglisci and two clerks that worked under her, Diane Pesiri and Maria Stabile, in his final chance to question them near the end of the trial. But Pesiri and Stabile declined to testify, as did Willy Giraldo, who also received ballots from Loglisci. After that, Seeger did not try to bring Loglisci or other witnesses to the stand.

Now there is more information: Stamford Clerk Warns FBI of Possible Ballot Fraud in Second Election <read>

About a year after she was elected town clerk in 2017, Lyda Ruijter discovered an odd database in her office computer files.

It contained information “that never should have been there,” Ruijter said Thursday.

The data listed 230 Stamford residents who’d voted by absentee ballot in the 2017 municipal election, according to Ruijter. She did not understand why the names were separated from the full list of absentee voters, she said.

In any given election, there should be exactly one list of absentee voters, she said…

She continued examining the data and found something else strange, Ruijter said.

Many absentee voters on the short list did not return their ballots to the town clerk’s office. But the full list showed that those same absentee voters did return their ballots, Ruijter said.

Further examination revealed that the converse was also true, according to Ruijter – the data showed that voters on the short list who were marked as having returned their ballots were marked on the full list as not having returned them.

The upshot of the conflicting sets of data was that the total number of voters who’d returned their absentee ballots was about the same, Ruijter found…

Her opponent, Loglisci, had lost the election with 44 percent of the in-person vote, Ruijter said. But Loglisci had won 62 percent of the absentee ballot vote…

In her letter Ruijter told the FBI that, at election time, Loglisci and select staff members sometimes worked “for many hours after closing,” once prompting a union grievance that overtime was unfairly offered only to the two clerks designated to issue absentee ballots.

Testimony on two election bills. One poorly written, the other needing more.

Yesterday I submitted testimony on two bills before the GAE (General Administration and Elections Committee. Unfortunately I was unable to testify in person. It was not for a lack of trying. I had submitted testimony and signed up for the hearing two days in advance, yet only one of my two testimonies was posted in time for the hearing and neither I nor the committee staff could get me the link to testify. Its happened before this year and last, yet only for this committee – in the past the staff was able to correct the problems. In one case not much was lost except to my reputation as the committee still called may name when I was supposed to testify.

S.B.472 Would change our existing 5% audit, adding risk-limiting audits. Unfortunately it is a highly flawed bill. I submitted the most detailed testimony, articulating its many flaws new and existing. Fortunately the testimony, so far, us unanimously against the current bill, with more on the way. Overall no harm done that I could not speak. It would seem that its is very unlikely to move forward this year.

H.J.114 The Constitutional Amendment to provide for no-excuse absentee voting. In this case, not being able to testify in person and my testimony not being up hurt. I am likely the only person speaking and submitting testimony asking that the bill remove another unfortunate restriction in the Constitution that will bite us along the way with absentee voting and/or ranked choice voting. Of course we can wait and learn our lesson the hard way.

Yesterday I submitted testimony on two bills before the GAE (General Administration and Elections Committee.) Unfortunately I was unable to testify in person. It was not for a lack of trying. I had submitted testimony and signed up for the hearing two days in advance, yet only one of my two testimonies was posted in time for the hearing and neither I nor the committee staff could get me the link to testify. Its happened before this year and last, yet only for this committee – in the past the staff was able to correct the problems. In one case not much was lost except to my reputation as the committee still called may name when I was supposed to testify.

S.B.472 Would change our existing 5% audit, adding risk-limiting audits. Unfortunately it is a highly flawed bill. I submitted the most detailed testimony, articulating its many flaws new and existing. Fortunately the testimony, so far, us unanimously against the current bill, with more on the way. Here is the testimony so far: <read>. Overall no harm done that I could not speak. It would seem that its is very unlikely to move forward this year.

I thank all the nationally recognized experts in Risk Limiting Audits and advocates from around the country who testified in person and submitted testimony.

Also a shout out to Chris Prue and ROVAC for catching a civil rights issue that we opposed last year and was a section of another bill being heard this yesterday, the testimony by Chris Prue: <Video 4:04 in>

The Arizona “Republican Audit”, no so fast

There are many reviews of the Arizona “Republican Audit” <read> and critiques, like this one <read>. I have to admit that I did not attend or watch the audit and have not read the report in detail, yet I have heard from those who have read the report and some who observed parts of it. Democrats and others are celebrating. Don’t rush to any conclusions, consider:

There are many distorted claims in the audit report, yet a few point to weaknesses in our election process, not just in Arizona…

There are many distorted claims in the audit report, yet a few point to weaknesses in our election process, not just in Arizona. For instance we need to be concerned with ballot security, largely from when they leave the polling place until they are destroyed 22 months later – how secure is the storage? Who can access the storage and ballots undetected? How can we be sure?
There are huge questions about the quality of signature comparison, is it even a reliable way to check for fraud? Does it really serve to inappropriately reject legitimate ballots?
Democrats and others celebrate that the audit “proved” that Biden won by a slightly larger margin than the official results. Given the non-transparency of the audit, there is no reason to believe its results are more accurate that the official results; no reason to believe they are accurate at all. Perhaps Biden won by a little more or a little less than the official results, yet this audit provides no reliable evidence.

S1 Tempers “For the People Act” Impact on Connecticut

As we pointed out earlier, H1, the House version of the “For The People Act” would have a large impact on Connecticut’s elections.

Recently there was a new Managers’ Amendment in the Senate, S1 https://www.rules. senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Klobuchar%20Substitute%20S1.pdf

We have reviewed the new version and are pleased to report that there are many improvements that would ease its impact on Connecticut election officials, yet the impact remains significant.

Among the changes:

As we pointed out earlier, H1, the House version of the “For The People Act” would have a large impact on Connecticut’s elections.

Recently there was a new Managers’ Amendment in the Senate, S1 https://www.rules. senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Klobuchar%20Substitute%20S1.pdf

We have reviewed the new version and are pleased to report that there are many improvements that would ease its impact on Connecticut election officials, yet the impact remains significant.

Among the changes:

It now leaves a single day between early voting and election day and does not require early voting on election day. Still just a single day to print updated voting lists and load ePollbooks is very short – especially if there is a natural disaster or internet outage – just when you need those printed voter lists the most.
It now reduces the requirement for 20 days delay in results for accepting and curing absentee ballots to 10 days. Yet, that is not enough to save Connecticut from two elections, with two deadlines each even year, until we pass a Constitutional Amendment to conform state elections to federal election deadlines. Its complicated. Unfortunately the Elections Committee apparently did not get the urgency in my testimony.
It also removed the requirement for absentee balloting signature checking.
For smaller jurisdictions it eased some of the requirements for Election Day Registration and early voting – it seems that these will help large-area, small-voter rural areas more that Connecticut small towns.
It postponed many of the deadlines and provided an option for a state to apply for exemptions for a few years in some cases.
It also eased impossible requirements for support of those with disabilities. Some are good, but removing grants for research are disappointing.
It also removed grants for Risk Limiting Audits, that is not bad since it made Risk Limiting Audits mandatory.
Overall it included many of the changes recommended by the State Audit Working Group, which I moderate. We held sessions with staffers of four Senators on the Rules and Administration committees: Senators Klobuchar, Merkley, Feinstein, and Padilla Embarrassingly, to me, Sen Blumenthal on the Administration Committee did not respond to calls to meet with his staff.

It would remain a huge scramble for the State to meet all the deadlines and for local registrars to double to quadruple (depending on size) their work and budgets for each election.