Mail/Absentee Voting | CTVotersCount.org

Absentee Fraud in Bridgeport? Who could have imagined?

Who says there is little a single legislator can do to affect election integrity and confidence? Human error can change an election result or serve as a ready excuse to cover-up fraud.

A couple hours ago we quoted Denise Merrill when she said “Most of this stuff doesn’t get attention until something goes wrong“. Right on cue, an opportunity presents itself to address the current risks of absentee voting and avoid the expanded potential for fraud and disenfranchisement with no-excuse absentee voting:

Article in the Connecticut Post: MariAn Gail Brown: Absentee ballot issues cast doubt on primary <read>

Hendricks is the voter who filed an affidavit claiming state Rep. Ezequiel Santiago showed up on her doorstep last Thursday asking if she was voting by absentee ballot. When Hendricks informed him that her vote in next Tuesday’s primary would be cast by absentee ballot, Santiago made her an offer.

“He told me that he would take the ballot from me,” Hendricks says in a sworn statement, “to turn in if I hadn’t sent it already.”

Hendricks might be old but if her mind is still sharp, assuming her assessment of the situation is correct, this is an election law violation. The only people who can turn in absentee ballots are electors themselves, their legal guardian, or a caretaker such as a doctor or nurse who has an affidavit signed by the absentee voter…

“I was there that day to check to see whether the residents received their ballots or not,” Santiago says. “I also stressed to them that they shouldn’t allow anyone from any campaign (to) help them fill out their ballots for them.”

Don’t you just wonder why a state representative who is also a city employee who makes it a point to tell Hendricks, according to her affidavit, that he does “a lot of work up in Hartford for senior citizens” would then tell Connecticut Post reporter John Burgeson that he merely “stressed to them that they shouldn’t allow anyone from any campaign” to help them? If that really was Santiago’s mission, why show up there? He could have just as easily issued a letter to his constituents. It’s just hard to buy that Santiago wasn’t there to troll for absentee ballots.

Maybe only because they checked, and maybe only because of this attention it was discovered that the voter was sent two absentee ballots:

The only way Hendricks would have received two absentee ballots, Bridgeport’s town clerk says, is that she filed two absentee ballot applications. To Maya, this points out another shortcoming in the election process in Connecticut’s biggest city.

“What we need is an automated absentee ballot system. I’ve researched that. And I even found one that met our needs,” Maya says. “But there were glitches in the program that I found and we can’t use that. But we have so many absentee ballots that this system we have of doing all this by hand doesn’t work anymore.”

We are not buying that excuse.

“What we need is an automated absentee ballot system. I’ve researched that. And I even found one that met our needs,” Maya says. “But there were glitches in the program that I found and we can’t use that. But we have so many absentee ballots that this system we have of doing all this by hand doesn’t work anymore.”

A decade ago Bridgeport’s town clerk had 17 employees. In 2007, the department had nine employees. And now with retirements and layoffs, this campaign season the town clerk’s is down to six staffers, who not only process absentee ballots, but handle land records, register business trade names and issue dog licenses, among other things.

As the article says the number of absentee ballots sent for this election is 1,100. We wonder how many of those are duplicates? So far, it seems that for the one voter checked, it was a duplicate. Just last November, the citizen Bridgeport Recount showed 1,221 absentee votes for Governor, but the city’s official count was 1,181, so there is certainly plenty of precedent for inaccurate counts in Bridgeport, yet the 1,100 represents a decrease in absentee ballots sent last November. (Unless some magically appeared back then.)

Who says there is little a single legislator can do to affect election integrity and confidence? Human error can change an election result or serve as a ready excuse to cover-up fraud.

Related: Today, Secretary Merrill responds to critical editorial, articulates her position on early voting, mail-in, and no-excuse absentee voting. <read>

Update: We have looked up the existing Google election application used by many to find their polling places. Politico: Google polling app misleads voters <read> Last spring we attended a presentation by Google on the system. In reply to our question, the Google representative confirmed that the application is only as good as the data supplied by the state. Which in Connecticut’s case would need to come from our inaccurate state system as reported by the Audit Coalition. Sadly, the Legislature and the Secretary of the State’s Office chose not to require Registrars to keep the system up to date, but choose to have Registrars file yet another paper report with the Secretary of the State <see our testimony page 16>

Sec 4. (NEW) Also requires registrars to certify to the Secretary of the State a list of polling
places prior to each election. The Secretary of the State needs to have an accurate list of polling
places to be in compliance with the law and to restore the integrity of the post-election audit
random drawing.

We support this goal, but propose a more efficient 21st century solution.

We recommend instead that registrars be required to certify that the Statewide Centralized Voter
Registration System is up to date with the correct list of polling places, rather than submit a list
of polling places. In 2010 the Secretary of the State’s Office used the registration system
information to provide voters with online access to verify their registration and determine the
location of their polling place – it would seem to be more efficient to have

registrars be required to keep the online list accurate,

provide voters with certified accurate information.

Our recommendation would

avoid redundant transcription by the registrars,

reduce the paperwork and redundant data entry required for the random drawing, while increasing automation at the Secretary of the State’s Office,

and provide voters with accurate polling place information, available online.

Norwich Bulletin: Merrill pitches for more tech, less costs in elections

Saving money, getting people voting are laudable goals, yet we caution that in the process we should not sacrifice voting integrity and confidence in pursuing increased participation. In fact, we should be increasing integrity and confidence while we also pursue convenience and participation. And we should be cautious that our efforts actual result in the intended results.

Article: Merrill pitches for more tech, less costs in elections <read>

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill on Wednesday detailed her ideas for election changes that would include greater use of technology and support for a constitutional amendment allowing early voting…

Merrill was careful to say she isn’t supporting the idea of early voting but a constitutional amendment that would give Connecticut that option. Other states have begun using things like mail-in ballots more, boosting voter participation, she said…

“My primary consideration is costs,” the secretary said. “I’m looking for efficiencies.”

Merrill didn’t give exact estimates about how much she’s looking to save. A dialogue with municipal leaders is important, she said…

“The election process is a partnership with elected officials,” Merrill said.
Preston First Selectman Robert Congdon, who served with Merrill on the Appropriations Committee when both were in the General Assembly, said the ideas point in the right direction.

“She realizes that we’ve got to come into the 21st century,” said Congdon, who is also chairman of the council of governments. “She’s cognizant of the fact that we have to be able to afford these things.”

Costs was also on the mind of Salem First Selectman Kevin Lyden.

“I applaud your initiative,” he told Merrill after the secretary finished her speech. “We have to look at what’s going on nationwide. But I’m concerned about mandates. The state gives us (towns) mandates but not the money for them.”

In the words of Gerald Weinberg “Quality is Free, IF you are willing to pay for it.”

And in the words of Doug Chapin, at the Secretary’s Election Performance Task Force, just last month “You can have little to no impact on your turn-out bottom line with election laws. Turnout tends to be driven by what’s on the ballot rather than when, where, or how it is available.”

The article continues:

Merrill’s office is developing a “model plan” to deal with election day emergencies such as happened last November when some Bridgeport polling places ran out of ballots. She is asking every town to develop its own emergency plan that could include printing more ballots at the polls. Only one-third of voting registrars have Internet access, Merrill said. Increasing Internet use will reduce election problems, she said.

“Most of this stuff doesn’t get attention until something goes wrong,” the secretary said.

We could not agree more. It would be preferable, however, to prevent the next several election disasters in Connecticut, rather than reacting after the fact, saying “Who could have ever anticipated that…[check-off lists do not match ballot counts] or [we have such a weak chain-of-custody for ballots] or [a single individual could change the vote counts on the scanner and access the ballots undetected]?”

Absentee votes in Florida, voters not required to participate

A three part series highlights ongoing, organized, absentee vote fraud in Florida. The [low] highlight is the video and story in the first part, of a disabled former county worker who tried her darnedest to vote but in the end was denied.

Could Mrs. Thompson have forgotten that she received and returned the ballot? She said no numerous times. As a former County worker, she was sharp as a tack mentally. We compared the ballot envelope signature to a fresh signature sample done by Judith at Elections as well as to the signature on her State identification card. The signature on the absentee ballot envelope when compared with Mrs. Thompson’s valid signature wasn’t even close. There were three of us looking at the signatures. The envelope signature was very tight compared to her looser hand and the capital letters were written differently. I asked Elections how they verify absentee ballot signature, they said:

The signatures are verified electronically. If the signature on the certificate requires further review, then the certificate is reviewed manually. – Michelle G. McClain, Assistant Deputy Supervisor, Voter Services

It is interesting to note that when Miami Dade County Clerk Harvey Ruvin reviewed petition signatures he did them ALL manually and had a handwriting expert on hand. Maybe the Elections Department’s program is not working as it allowed Mrs. Thompson to be disenfranchised by a forged signature. I got a few different stories about how signatures are verified at the Election’s Department. I even called the software company that supplies Elections and they were very defensive. I asked them about statistics on accuracy, They never called back. Joe Centorino at the State’s Attorney’s office (now head of County’s Ethics), at my urging, instituted an investigation into Mrs. Thompson’s lost vote. He said it was difficult proving these cases. His biggest complaint was that there is no penalty for people from campaigns picking up absentee ballots from voters even though it is illegal. He needs to have a penalty to impose on the illegal activity in order to make arrests….

We had spent some time at the Miami–Dade County Department of Elections looking at returned absentee ballot envelopes and ballots from the preceding election. What we reviewed were the now empty ballot-filled envelopes which have the voter’s address information and signature. The actual ballots do not have any identifying numbers, names or marks on them. We viewed those separately. We were not allowed to touch or copy the envelopes or ballots. They were held up in front of our faces.

What we saw during our time at Elections amazed us. It actually prepared us for Ms. Thompson’s experience. What we learned through interviews before Ms. Thompson’s trek to Elections was not surprising.

During our time at Elections, we saw ballots that were filled in strangely.

Among the oddities were numerous ballots that had only 2 candidates (the same two) filled in out of the scads of candidates in the November election. There were ballots with pencil circles around the “correct” bubble with dark ink colored in them. It may not sound like much, but when you are sitting there looking at page after page, you soon realize that some things you see are not quite right.

When it came to the ballot certification envelopes, our review offered up many questions and we oftentimes received answers from the department about the absentee process that didn’t make sense.

On the envelopes we noted some strange things like unusual numbers of voters in a certain area missing required printed signatures at the envelope top while other areas had all of the required printing on them. There were envelopes with signatures in the wrong place allowing the envelopes to be opened or closed; there were different hand writing styles on the top, bottom and front of the envelope; there were envelopes with NO signature (they were counted, now I want you to try that at a poll) and other things that just seemed weird.

In some cases we asked to compare the envelope signatures with the one on file and we were denied the opportunity. We asked questions about the envelope review process. The response really didn’t calm our discomfort with what we saw. After this visit, I am still not convinced that the envelopes are truly looked at in a comprehensive matter – having found one vote counted with NO signature…

Miami Herald’s Columnist Fred Grimm said:

“In 1993, after the Hialeah city election was tainted by illicit commerce in absentee votes, a Miami Herald editorial warned, “Florida’s absentee ballot guidelines are among the nation’s most lenient. Indeed, the laws encourage ‘ballot brokers’ who exchange blocs of absentee ballots for money. The Legislature needs to adopt tighter regulations for obtaining absentee ballots. The Florida Senate wisely voted down a bill this year that would have made the code even looser.”

That bit of wisdom did not hold. In 2004, the Legislature relaxed absentee ballot rules. And ballot brokers are still deciding elections. (The Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections mailed out 126,372 absentee ballots for Tuesday’s county mayoral election.) If the rules were any looser, my dog Jasper could vote absentee.”…

A View from an Insider:

There are cases where they would be “using” the absentee ballots mailed to the typical Cuban seniors — those who are handicapped by their physical problems, and many who are not. These people don’t speak English; most live either in nursing homes or in private nursing homes [family homes that take up to 8 seniors], so the people who are the managers at these places are in control of the votes/people.

These seniors don’t know how to vote, so they trust their “handlers” to do this for them. Let’s say that there’s a private home that houses 8 seniors; the person who manages the place will sell their ballots to the people who are gathering votes for the candidates. This manager can collect anywhere from $50 to $100 per ballot. It all depends on how badly the campaigns need the vote and, most all, how much money is available for negotiating.

Why on earth do you think that the costs of running a political campaign in Miami-Dade get higher with every new election? Do you really believe that they need the money for radio and TV?

In the case of the dining rooms [“comedores”], I understand that it is more of a communal process. As the ballots arrive, the “handlers” sit with the seniors and they tell them that they are going to help complete the voting process, so it is easier for them. These seniors have no idea how to vote, and even the presence of a ballot scares them to death.

In the cases of the hundreds of Cuban clinics in Miami-Dade – that are no more than Medicare mills – the owners, or managers, ask the seniors if they want to “negotiate” their ballots, and they offer them money. Naturally, a Medicare mill is there to help the senior make money, one way or the other. And then the seniors request their ballots by phone, and even if they would need a medical excuse, stating that they “can’t go to the polls,” remember who’s helping them to do the transaction, THEIR CLINIC…

Here is a last word from the Miami Herald:

“Still, interviews with at least a half-dozen people involved in Greater Miami elections paint a picture of a flourishing cottage industry in which ballot brokers promise to deliver blocks of absentee votes for a price. To be sure, many strategies for targeting absentee voters are legal, but the practice becomes dubious when voters are pressured with insistent phone calls and home visits. And the efforts can cross the line into fraud, when ballots that are collected under the guise of helping a voter are altered or destroyed.”

How much safer/riskier is Connecticut? We are not so sure. People here have been prosecuted. We are certain, that our President and the make-up of our Congress is dependent on errors and fraud in Florida and in every other state.

Elections Performance Task Force: Technology Fair and Doug Chapin

You can have little to no impact on your turn-out bottom line with election laws. Turnout tends to be driven by what’s on the ballot rather than when, where, or how it is available. – Doug Chapin

Elections Performance Task Force Coverage <prev>

Yesterday was the 2nd meeting of the Elections Performance Task Force. It was a technology fair along with a talk plus Q&A with Doug Chapin. <ct-n video>

The technology fair was well attended with perhaps two to three times as many people as the Task Force members. Several vendors demonstrated electronic poll books, with single vendors demonstrating on-demand printing, high speed scanners, the AutoMark for persons with disabilities, and the PCC Technology Group, Connecticut’s voter registration database vendor. I was pleased to hear about a new version of our voter registration system in use in four towns that should provide a solution to past performance problems. It also has a capability for updating election results from polling places on election night via iPad or SmartPhone – hopefully that capability will be implemented by the State to provide more detailed election results, downloadable by the public, as we have been calling for. Also we noted that a pilot test of one vendor’s electronic poll book system will be conducted in the city of Torrington.

Doug Chapin, Director of the Program for Excellence in Election Administration, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, provided insights to the Task Force covering issues related to technology and election administration, followed by a Q&A. His talk centered on the value and price of changing election administration, technology, and election laws. Some of his main points to the Task Force:

Extensive data is needed to determine the value of, and direction of election administration changes.
In this era of tight budgets, assume you will not get increases for election administration.
Measuring Return On Investment (ROI) is important. Understand both the value and cost of changes.
A trend in the near term is attention on voter registration, including accuracy and online registration. Most states that do online registration accomplish it in cooperation with another state agency, such as motor vehicles.
Early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, and voting centers are strong trends. They can provide voter convenience. They can save money or add to costs. Data does not support significant changes in participation.
Once you start early voting, taking it away can have an impact, once people are accustomed to it. (As taking away local polling place voting may also have a similar impact)
Survey voters to determine their levels of satisfaction and confidence in the process.
Do not expect increases in participation based on changes or reforms in election administration. Satisfaction and convenience can be increased but not participation.

Chapin did not cover integrity, security, and the potential for errors and fraud. I found his remarks on the limits of election administration to effect participation particularly valuable. Certainly election administration can impact participation, yet likely only marginally. More data is needed to assess the value of early voting, voting centers, and election day registration to support his contention in each case. Surveying voters is useful to improve convenience and service, yet has its limitations when it comes to confidence in our elections. In the near term we will have more to say on the relationship between integrity and confidence, along with why we need both for democracy to flourish <see here>.

You can have little to no impact on your turn-out bottom line with election laws. Turnout tends to be driven by what’s on the ballot rather than when, where, or how it is available. – Doug Chapin

I was particularly interested in the demonstrations of electronic poll books and their potential in Connecticut. To me, they represent a huge step forward in accuracy, providing value to voters, poll workers, election officials, and campaigns. However, I do not see significant savings to match the investment, maintenance, and operational costs. There are some savings, especially in the phone intensive coordination of registration transfers between polling places, involving multiple phone calls between headquarters and polling places. It will be interesting if the Torrington pilot demonstrates savings such that towns will be willing to foot the bill for the local hardware and software, while offering to pay their share to the state for interfacing our voter registration system to electronic poll books – I doubt it. Overall, I would favor a solid plan for electronic poll books, yet justified as a moderate cost investment based on the value of accuracy and convenience.

We do need better equipment, accommodations, and access for persons with disabilities – much better than our current costly, problematic, inconvenient IVS system. That deserves its own Task Force with election officials and representatives of persons with disabilities, along with extensive testing and cost benefit analysis.

The issue of ballots, ordering, costs, and on demand printing is complex. The Secretary mentioned that we do not have a good handle on ballot printing costs today. Costs vary from town to town and are based on the size and pages of ballots required. It is also based on the number of ballot styles and voters per ballot style. On-demand printing provides another option, yet the devil is in the details. How would on-demand be deployed? How many printers? Costs for programming ballot styles? Transportation costs, presuming printers are not in each polling place? Contingency plans for power failures, traffic accidents etc. The only valid analysis would be to compare complete proposed systems comparing all costs and benefits. Our estimate is that there is a potential to save a little, provide additional value, yet also a potential to spend a lot with little benefit. We should proceed with caution and skepticism.

The next meeting is scheduled for September 19th, 1:00pm – 3:00pm. The Task Force will hear from one of its members, Heather Gerken, Yale University School of Law.

Update: For another take, read this CTNewsJunkie.org article. Best of all watch the video yourself: <ct-n video>

Ballot Skulduggery in Wisconsin? Or Inadvertent Errors?

Absentee voting runs the risks of errors and fraud beyond in-person voting. The latest example from Wisconsin: Is it fraud or is it error? For certain it is big money causing disenfranchisement and risking democracy.

Is the Koch-backed conservative group Americans For Prosperity up to no good in the Wisconsin state Senate recalls?

As Politico reports, mailers have now turned up from Americans For Prosperity Wisconsin, addressed to voters in two of the Republican-held recall districts, where the elections will be held on August 9. The mailers ask recipients to fill out an absentee ballot application, and send it in — by August 11, after Election Day for the majority of these races.

“These are people who are our 1’s [solid Democrats] in the voterfile who we already knew,” a Democratic source told Politico. “They ain’t AFP members, that’s for damn sure.”

The response from AFP and the Koch

“This just went out to our members,” Seaholm said. “I’m sure the liberals will try to make a mountain out of a molehill in an attempt to distract voters’ attention from the issues.”

But what of the self-identified Democratic voters who received them?

Seaholm noted that some critics of his group sign up for AFP material so they can keep tabs on the organization, which backs GOP candidates and causes and was co-founded by billionaire activists David and Charles Koch. He said he couldn’t be sure if that is what happened here.

“No (mailing) list is perfect,” Seaholm said.

What do you think?

Round-Up: O Me O My O – Errors in Jersey and Fraud in Ohio

We frequently highlight stories of election error and fraud nationwide. We do this as a service to provide references to counter the frequent statements from election officials and legislators claiming no record of such errors and fraud.

Editor’s Note: We frequently highlight stories of election error and fraud nationwide. We do this as a service to provide references to counter the frequent statements from election officials and legislators claiming no record of such errors and fraud.

O Me O My O – How They Add Votes In Ohio

Secretary of State turns investigation over to prosecutors: Elections chief suspects voter fraud – Secretary of State seeks criminal investigation <read>

Looks like certain fraud and perhaps a strong case for prosecution:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted wants the attorney general and the Lawrence County Prosecutor to determine if a group of Democrats attempted voter fraud in the 2010 general election.

If so, it could mean prison time and a fine for anyone convicted of these crimes.

On Tuesday Husted turned over to Mike DeWine and J.B. Collier the findings of his investigation into the applications of 119 Lawrence County absentee ballots for further review and possible prosecution…

At issue are applications for absentee ballots that were sent to two post office boxes — 42 were sent to a box in the name of Ironton resident Charles Maynard and 77 were sent to a box in the name of Russell Bennett of Chesapeake during the fall of 2010.

“Of the 77 absentee ballot applications marked to be sent to Russ Bennett’s P.O. Box, 68 reportedly were hand-delivered to the Lawrence County Board of Elections office by a man named Butch Singer,” according to the letter sent to Mike DeWine and J.B. Collier.

In October a board of elections employee noticed that the handwriting in the “Send Ballot To” portion of the applications differed from that in the section with the voter’s name. The board then contacted 10 voters to see where they wanted their ballot sent.

“All 10 voters replied that they wanted their ballots mailed to them at their home address, suggesting that the ‘Send Ballot To’ portion of the absentee ballot application was completed after the voters filled in their application form,” Husted’s letter states.

Incidents like this demonstrate the reality of absentee/mail voting risks and why we would limit such voting to those genuinely unable to vote in person.

Humans and Machines Err In Garden State

In New Jersey, a voting machine is misprogrammed, then apparently a faulty or lax pre-election test fails to recognize the error. Finally, the surprise result causes an investigation: “Human error” found in Fairfield election results <read>

A supposed malfunction of the problematic and much-debated Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machines is being chalked up to human error.

Results from Primary Election day last month puzzled two candidates who expected the exact opposite. Less than a month later, there’s a line in the sand being drawn between a second election and inspection of the voting machine itself.

“On Election Day, the votes cast for Candidates Vivian and Mark Henry registered for Candidates Cynthia and Ernest Zirkle, respectively,” read a statement addressed to all affected by the Democratic County Committee election in Fairfield.

According to documents provided to The News, Cumberland County Board of Elections Director Lizbeth Hernandez takes responsibility and regrets a pre-election programming error.

Attached to a legal petition filed by the Zirkles were 28 affidavits from voters swearing they supported the two candidates.

Those 28 votes of the 43 total cast on June 7 make up the majority.

How frequently do such errors occur? We have no way of knowing. The good news is that in this instance the error was discovered and will be corrected. Yet, it is rare that so few voters are involved and that such strong evidence can be developed so that an investigation is initiated. Since New Jersey has paperless touch screen voting machines a re-vote will be required.

There is a tendency to dismiss these errors as “only” “human errors”, just as we dismiss transportation accidents as pilot, controller, or engineer errors. However, whatever role inadequate human capabilities or inadequate systems play in the equation, these are voting integrity issues that can be significantly reduced with better procedures, training, and systems, along with corrective measures like paper ballots and post-election audits.

Here in Connecticut we have paper ballots so that if such a problem were discovered we would not need a re-vote, just a recanvass or a recount. Yet we have little no reason to celebrate. We have many referendums or special elections in single towns with all memory cards programmed identically. In many cases there is no obvious reason to believe, let alone realistically prove, which candidate or decision “should” have won – too close an election or too many voters to realistically get enough affidavits. And referendums and special elections are exempt from post-election audits such as they are.

Podcast: Talk of the Nation: Voter fraud, voter ID, and absentee voting fraud.

The main arguments are presented from both sides. We believe that the case for significant individual voter fraud has not been made. Yet, it is appropriate that the debate continue, with more details than can be covered in a half-hour segment. Everyone agreed that absentee ballot fraud is significant and frequent, much more extensive than individual voter fraud. That is the primary reason we oppose any form of increased mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting.

Talk of the Nation held a discussion yesterday by proponents and opponents of voter ID laws, now passed and proposed in several states, Voter ID Debate Ramping Up Again For 2012 <listen>

Most of the hour is devoted to a discussion/debate on the merits of voter ID. The main arguments are presented from both sides. We oppose voter ID. We believe that the case for significant individual voter fraud has not been made, (was not successfully made on this show), that in fact there is little individual voter fraud, and that many would be disenfranchised by voter ID. Yet, it is appropriate that the debate continue, with more details than can be covered in a half-hour segment.

In the last minutes of the debate, everyone agreed that absentee ballot fraud is significant and frequent, much more extensive than individual voter fraud. That is the primary reason we oppose any form of increased mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting. Absentee voting risks also deserve an extended debate.

Clerks: No-Excuse Absentee Voting Creates Problems

The opinion piece hits all of the bases, articulating the costs, the increased opportunity for fraud, increased disenfranchisement, and that it will not increase turnout.

Courant article by Joseph V. Camposeo, town clerk of Manchester and president of the Connecticut Town Clerks Association. <read>

The opinion piece hits all of the bases, articulating the costs, the increased opportunity for fraud, increased disenfranchisement, and that it will not increase turnout:

Research from other states has shown that when offered no-excuse absentee ballot voting, the volume of people using this method has doubled or tripled. But it is important to note that in these states overall voter turnout has not increased.

Further, our current system for processing absentee ballots could not handle the increase in volume under a no-excuse system. The no-excuse option would quickly strain an outdated, inefficient and manual process for mailing, accounting for and counting of absentee ballots. A no-excuse option for voting will have a significant effect on our municipal budgets as an unfunded mandate.

A significant concern among town clerks and the state Elections Enforcement Commission is the potential for voter fraud in this highly manual process. The current system does not provide for the security and storage of a large number of ballots within the town clerks’ vaults. Also, with higher volumes, there is greater opportunity for counting errors.

Under a no-excuse system there is no way to guarantee the applicant is voting the ballot. The absentee voting system already has been the focus of forgery, coercion, bribery and multiple-voting complaints. In contrast, at an early voting polling site, which opens prior to Election Day, individuals would need to produce identification before getting a ballot.

Furthermore, clerks are concerned that an increased number of voters would be disenfranchised under a no-excuse absentee ballot system. Already many absentee votes are disqualified and not counted because voters fail to sign the envelopes, mail them back too late or mismark their ballots. During the 2008 election in Missouri, 8,000 absentee ballots were not counted for these reasons. Those ballots could have changed the outcome of the election. At an early voting polling site, these voters would have been given another chance to vote their ballots correctly and not be disenfranchised…

No-excuse voting would also change the election season for candidates if residents were allowed to vote up to 30-days prior to Election Day, causing campaigns to start much earlier. Voters could be casting votes before they have all the information necessary to make an informed decision.

Yale Daily News: Absentee voting may not attract students

At Yale, the biggest challenge campus organizers face is not getting people to the polls on Election Day. Instead, the problem is getting people to register to vote in Connecticut in the first place, said Marina Keegan, president of the Yale College Democrats

As readers know we oppose expanded mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting for voting integrity issues. We recently covered reports that show early voting, including no-excuse absentee voting, actually DECREASES turnout. Now a story from Yale Daily News arguing why it may not increase student turnout: Absentee voting may not attract students <read>

Even if proposed changes to Connecticut elections bring more voters to the polls, Yalies may not be among them.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill unveiled exhaustive election reforms last week, including one, no-excuse absentee voting, that is designed to boost voter turnout by making voting easier. But while the expansion of Connecticut’s absentee ballot program, which currently restricts mail-in voting to the sick, elderly or out-of-state, may increase voter turnout overall, it is not likely to change the number of Yalies who vote, or how they do so, student and city activists said.

Av Harris, Merrill’s spokesman, said that of the secretary’s proposals, the constitutional amendment to allow for mail-in voting is most likely to impact students.

“The constitutional amendment is the one thing that could really improve the ability of students, and all voters, really, to vote,” Harris said. “But I think of students in particular because their schedules are so varied and it does become an issue of convenience,” Harris said, noting that not one university in the state has a polling station on campus.

At Yale, the biggest challenge campus organizers face is not getting people to the polls on Election Day. Instead, the problem is getting people to register to vote in Connecticut in the first place, said Marina Keegan, president of the Yale College Democrats. Roughly 1,100 students vote in Ward 1, and Keegan said the majority of those students vote at the New Haven Free Public Library, the ward’s Elm Street polling station.

“I think we miss the most votes from people who say, ‘Oh no, no, I’m gonna vote absentee at home,’” Keegan said, adding that they have no way of knowing how many of these people actually end up voting. “But it’s kind of a pain to vote absentee in your home state.”

Any type of absentee voting can be a pain for students, said New Haven Democratic Town Chair Susie Voigt. A former Yale employee herself, Voigt noted that students do not often check their mail, many do not have stamps on hand and going to the post office at all can be a hassle in itself.

“I never want to go to that post office — the line is like two miles long,” Voigt said of Yale Station.

As a result, Voigt said she doubts expanding absentee voting to anyone who wants to vote by mail will encourage Yalies to vote in Connecticut. And Michael Knowles ’12, an active Republican on campus, said he thinks students who want to vote will find a way to vote, and that the current system is not prohibitively difficult.

Public hearings for 15 election related bills – Update: Our Testimony

Today we provided testimony on ten bills. We talked six times and complemented the Committee on their new format of handling bills one at a time, allowing each person who wanted to the opportunity to testify on each bill separately. It worked very well and did not take as much time as one would expect over the old format of one opportunity per person for the day. Most of the testimony today was agreement or friendly disagreement between registrars, town clerks, state officials, and advocates. In the end we expect that better laws will result.

Note: The General Administration and Elections Committee has taken up several election bills and concepts for this session. We are optimistic that some of the concepts will be developed and passed to provide increased election integrity. Many of the bills taken up, often well intended, have unintended negative consequences. We are highlighting several of them to point out highlighting several of them to point out the good, the bad, and the unbelievable.

Update: 1/14/2011:

Related: Secretary of the State Merrill’s press conference CTNewsJunkiee report and CTMirror.

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On Monday the General Administration and Elections Committee will hold hearings of 15 elections related bills <agenda>

Most of these bills became publicly available on the Legislature’s website on Wednesday morning and late Wednesday they appeared on the agenda for Monday’s public hearing. A lot to absorb in a few days, yet we can say at this point that there are some good, not so good, and some highly questionable proposals in these bills.

Several of the bills are consolidations and committee rewrites of other bills, specifically for no-excuse absentee voting and an associated Constitutional amendment. One focuses on “Election Integrity” dealing with some of the issues raised by ballot shortages in Bridgeport, moderator training, registrars identifying polling places to the Secretary of the State etc. Another focuses on “Post-Election Audits”, authorizing local officials to audit via “independent machine rather than a tabulator” as an alternative to the current manual count.

Many of the bills are “Technical Bills” primarily intended to make small “technical” changes to the statutes to adjust to the move from lever machines to optical scanner. By our count these bill total 256 pages of details and redundancy since many address the same existing statutes. It seems they must have been written by different groups but perhaps based on previous bills which failed to pass the legislature over the last three years. We are in the process of reading through the bills to prepare detailed testimony for Monday, with suggestions for revisions, deletions and improvements. After reading through all the bills and discussing some portions with other advocates we can summarize a few items at this point:

It is all well and good to replace “machine” with “tabulator”, replace “registrars” with “registrars of voters”, and remove “he”s throughout, we doubt these changes will make any difference in the interpretation of the law by registrars of voters or the courts.

There are many changes that seem necessary to the conduct of elections by optical scanner that are not included. For instance, several sections do not seem to recognize that in addition to optical scanners and absentee ballots we now have polling place paper ballots, both scanned and hand counted to deal with secure and count.

The election laws, I suppose like many others, remain highly convoluted from amendments over the years and redundant. For example there are extensive, almost completely redundant, separate sections for primaries and elections. The problem is that they often differ in critical, substantial ways that make little sense. One bill makes a positive change that would allow officials from other towns to serve in primaries as they the existing law allows for elections. Asked to serve in another town for a primary, I declined to avoid breaking the law.

Within the bills are many good changes as well as some needing improvement. For example, the bill for “Integrity of Elections” calls for registrars to file plans for ballot printing with the Secretary of the State, locations of each polling place, and the names of moderators for each polling place to the Secretary of the State in advance of the election. Our reading indicates that moderators can be rejected by the Secretary but with no specified deadline for such rejections. We have called for the Secretary of the State to have an accurate list of polling places to restore the integrity of the post-election audits. While we applaud that change to enable an accurate list,we will also suggest a possibly more efficient method to accomplish that same goal.

But also within these 256 pages are several significant changes that may or may not be advisable. For instance, one calls for a demonstration “device” for voting in each polling place instead of a demonstration “machine” – it is hard to tell what would satisfy the requirement or if such would also be required for the IVS machines intended for voters with disabilities; our reading of another clause intended to codify the current recanvass procedures would eliminate a critical step in the process; another in our reading would significantly change the counting of cross-endorsed candidate votes – to the likely detriment of candidates and voters.

I am a strong supporter of new techniques and technologies that support independent machine auditing, but we will oppose change authorizing local officials to audit via “independent machine rather than a tabulator” as an alternative to the current manual count. While well intended, the proposed law provides no restrictions on such a machine, no requirements for the process, no standards, no guarantee the process would be anything like the successful example in Humboldt County, CA, and no budget for implementation. Voting integrity and confidence require that any independent machine audit be required to meet requirements that provide for public transparency and validation. In other words, vendors need to dot the “i”s and cross the ‘t”s in software and hardware products, while the law must require election officials to also dot the “i”s and cross the ‘t”s in implementing such audits. Municipalities that balk at spending a few hundred dollars on an audit when they are randomly selected are hardly in a position to acquire such equipment, let alone evaluate the equipment, and develop an effective, satisfactory process.