Mail/Absentee Voting | CTVotersCount.org

How Dumb Do They Think We Are?

Or are they dumber than we think?

No matter what you think about early voting, we find one argument by Senator Looney and Senator Flexer in a recent editorial completely irrelevant and misleading.

Or are they dumber than we think?

No matter what you think about early voting, we find one argument by Senator Looney and Senator Flexer in a recent editorial completely irrelevant and misleading: Senate Republicans should have supported early voting <read>

Our Republican colleagues in the Connecticut Senate, as well as Republicans nationally, often cite potential fraud as a reason not to enact early voting. However, the facts around voter fraud are simply not on their side. In 2014,the Washington Post published a comprehensive study that found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014. Even an analysis conducted by the National Republican Lawyers Association —a national organization of Republican lawyers —found only 332 alleged cases of voter fraud nationwide from 1997 through 2011. This is out of hundreds of millions of ballots cast.

What they have said is true, there is little if any votER fraud. Yet that point is irrelevant to the issue.

The problem is that their is plenty of votING fraud especially by Absentee Ballot, and right here in Connecticut. The problem is not the voters it is campaign and official insiders putting their fingers on the scale, RIGHT HERE IN CONNECTICUT, regularly. <e.g. here>

Editorial
We should expect more from the leader of the Senate and the Chair of the elections committee. They should know more, run their editorials past people that know more, and not try and pull the wool over our eyes. We should be able to rely on their words.

Five pieces of testimony on six mostly ridiculous bills

Yesterday the GAE Committee is hearing testimony on another raft if bills. I spoke on four pieces of testimony on five bills. What brings them together is that they are all but ridiculous and unworkable given existing tried and true election law.

I was not going to testify orally on H.B.7392 as I thought it was so outrageous that everyone would testify against it. Apparently not. Many believe it was just like last year’s bills. It is much worse. In his testimony, Michael Brandi from the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) saw the same problems I saw – it precludes anyone but the Secretary of the State, Registrars and political operatives from seeing voter registration records, not even the SEEC or polling place officials, let alone voter integrity groups. Not surprisingly the media is getting it wrong too (E.g.), since most of the testimony has yet to be posted by the Committee.

The bills, and links to my testimony, The first four are the ones I covered orally in my three minutes. (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than by date)

H.B.6063 A well-intended bill that would be a disaster for tracing absentee ballots and voting integrity.

S.B.268 and H.B. 6048 Inconsistent with EDR Law and A Wasteful Unfunded Mandate aimed at solving the mythical all but non-existent problem of votER fraud. Would all but kill EDR.

H.B.7160 Well-intended, but would provide for volunteer student election officials as young as 13. Would they actually be held to account for following the law? On the other hand, includes the best EDR provisions yet!

H.B.7392 At best a poor public policy idea undermining confidence in our elections and democracy.

S.J.14 Yet another constitutional amendment for absentee voting.

Three pieces of testimony on six bills

On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills. I was out of town but submitted testimony on several bills.

The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)

H.R.161 and S.J.27 A good and a not-so-good bill on Early Voting

S.B.1046, S.B.1049, and H.B.6059 One good and a couple of not-so-good Election Day Registration bills. In addition to those previously heard.

S.B.1050 A slightly improved Rank Choice Voting Task Force bill.

On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills. I was out of town but submitted testimony on several bills.

The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)

H.R.161 and S.J.27 A good and a not-so-good bill on Early Voting

S.B.1046, S.B.1049, and H.B.6059 One good and a couple of not-so-good Election Day Registration bills. In addition to those previously heard.

S.B.1050 A slightly improved Rank Choice Voting Task Force bill.

VotING fraud via Absentee, this time in Stamford

When Connecticut passed public financing of elections a major part of the justification was a history of campaign finance scandals. Avoiding expanded mail-in voting can be justified by the similar pattern of AB abuse. We do favor a form of early voting for Connecticut we call in-person absentee voting – in-person at the municipal clerk’s office, where officials can be expected to easily detect a single person attempting to vote 14 times under different names!

From the Stamford Advocate: Former Stamford Dem Party boss charged with falsifying absentee ballots <read>

STAMFORD — John Mallozzi, the city’s former Democratic Party chief, was arrested Wednesday on charges of absentee ballot fraud in the 2015 municipal election. He allegedly forged ballots for relatives, Spanish-speaking residents and Albanian-Americans new to the election system, according to the State’s Attorney’s Office.

Mallozzi was charged with 14 counts each of filing false statements and second-degree forgery. He turned himself in to Stamford police on the charges, both Class D felonies punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $5,000 per count…

Hoti told investigators that on Election Day 2015 he was rejected at his District 8 polling place in the Cove by a monitor who told him the record showed he’d already voted by absentee ballot. Hoti said he had not. The monitor allowed Hoti to vote after Hoti filled out a form attesting that he did not vote by absentee…

On Jan. 10 a state forensic science analyst determined that signatures on 14 absentee ballots “share common authorship” with the handwriting samples provided by Mallozzi, according to the affidavit. None of the 14 voters whose names were on the ballots had requested them, the affidavit states.

Allegations, convictions, and enforcement penalties for AB fraud are regular occurrences in Connecticut. There are likely many more that are not discovered. Just lucky that one of these voters attempted to vote legally and through diligence of the election officials the fraud was discovered. If that one voter had not attempted to vote, if may never have been discovered and continued in subsequent elections.

Editorial

This is why we oppose expanded mail-in voting, such as no-excuse absentee voting. If might be safe in other states, yet Connecticut has an ongoing record of absentee votING fraud (as opposed to votER fraud) by insiders or candidate and party officials. This year and last we have cases in Hartford and Bridgeport as well.

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>

Israeli Firm Proves Our Point: Fax is as risky as Online Voting

As we have been saying for years, Online/Internet voting risks include email and fax voting.
<Since 2008>

Story today in the Washington Post:
Report: Hackers Target Fax Machines
Phone Line Connected To Computer Network Can Offer Access

As we have been saying for years, Online/Internet voting risks include email and fax voting.
<Since 2008>

Story today in the Washington Post:

Report: Hackers Target Fax Machines

Phone Line Connected To Computer Network Can Offer Access
By MIRANDA MOORE Washington Post

The fax machine is widely considered to be a dinosaur of inter-office communications, but it may also present a vulnerable point where hackers can infiltrate an organization’s network, according to a new report from Israel-based software company Check Point. The company said that the vulnerability was identified as a result of research intended to discover potential security risks, and not as the result of any attack.

Hackers can gain access to a network using the phone line connected to a fax machine, which is often connected to the rest of an organization’s network. By sending an image file that contains malicious software over the phone line, hackers are able to take control of the device and access the rest of the network. The researchers were able to do this using only a fax number, which is often widely distributed by organizations on business cards and websites.
The report estimates that there are more that 17 million fax machines in use in the United States alone. The legal and medical fields both continue to rely heavily on fax machines to conduct business, since they are widely considered to be a more secure form of transmitting sensitive information and signatures compared to email. Banking and real estate also frequently transfer documents containing signatures via fax.

With the advent of all-in-one products that include fax functions as well as printing and scanning, fax machines may be more prevalent in homes and office than people realize. This particular vulnerability only applies if such a machine is connected to a telephone line, however.

The only machines tested were from HP’s line of all-in-one printers, but according to the report, these vulnerabilities are likely to be found in machines from any manufacturer that use similar technology. HP issued a patch for its products before the report was published, which is available for download from its support website.

The report advises that if a fax machine is too old to support a software update, or if the manufacturer has yet to issue a patch to fix the vulnerability, fax capabilities should be used only on a segmented part of the network without access to critical data. The report also advises that the phone line connected to an all-in-one type machine should be disconnected if a user or organization does not use the fax functions.

Five pieces of testimony on six bills

On Thursday the GAE Committee held testimony on most election bills this year. (There was one last week and a couple more will be on Monday). For once, I was able to support more bills than I opposed!

Opposition and support by the Secretary of the State and Registrars was mixed. In addition to supporting and opposing various bills, I offered several suggestions for improvement. And one suggestion for radical improvement.

It would be a very instructive exercise for you to read my testimony, that from individual registrars, ROVAC (Registrars Of Voters Association, Connecticut), the Secretary of the State, and others.

The bills were:
H.B.5422 Election Day Registration for Primaries
[Supported]

H.B.5459 Wording Change to Closing Polls
[Provided extensive comments and changes, pointing out that polling-
place ballots are insufficiently protected and how to change that.]

H.J.28 and S.J.31 Constitutional Amendment Authorizing Early Voting
[Supported. This is a much safer alternative than proposed and
rejected by the voters in 2014. I suggested modifications that
would save municipalities a lot, and provide even more
hours for voters.]

S.B.410 Post-Election Audit Drawing Date and SOTS Posting of Rulings
[Supported the bill with changes.]

S.B.411 Curing a Civil Rights Violation with EDR
[Supported. For several years I have been warning of the
potential violation]

You can see all the testimony <here>

Links to the bills are at the top of my testimony on each bill.

Do you have any examples of incorrectly decided elections, errors, and fraud etc.?

Last month as I prepared for the MLK Conversation, I wrote up a couple of Frequently Asked Questions, one asked about Conspiracy Theorists, which I addressed earlier, and then there was this one about actual evidence of incorrectly decided elections, error, and fraud.

Do you have any examples of incorrectly decided elections, errors, and fraud etc.?

In Connecticut there was a question incorrectly decided in New London. Because advocates closely reviewed election data it was obvious that officials counted 50 more voters than voters in one district’s absentee ballots(*). They demanded a recount and the result was reversed.

The last I heard, the recently replaced municipal clerk in Stamford was under Federal investigation for Absentee Ballot errors. She was reported by the two Registrars…

Last month as I prepared for the MLK Conversation, I wrote up a couple of Frequently Asked Questions, one asked about Conspiracy Theorists, which I addressed earlier <here>, and then there was this one about actual evidence of incorrectly decided elections, error, and fraud.

Do you have any examples of incorrectly decided elections, errors, and fraud etc.?

In Connecticut there was a question incorrectly decided in New London. Because advocates closely reviewed election data it was obvious that officials counted 50 more voters than voters in one district’s absentee ballots(*). They demanded a recount and the result was reversed.

The last I heard, the recently replaced municipal clerk in Stamford was under Federal investigation for Absentee Ballot errors. She was reported by the two Registrars.

Also a Party Chair in Bridgeport is under SEEC investigation for Absentee Ballot errors.

In fact, absentee skullduggery is pretty common. A couple of years ago an article said that of 17 allegations of Absentee ballot fraud in recent years in Bridgeport, 13 were investigated, validated, and resulted in fines.

In East Longmeadow, MA, a few years ago, in a primary 400 voters were registered in a party without their knowledge by insiders and voted without their knowledge. It swung the primary and the inside perpetrators were punished, with the election reversed.

In that same year a similar thing happened with 3000 votes in Miami/Dade. Officials withheld IP data vital to an investigation, nobody was caught of punished.

In 2002, Don Siegelman, a very popular person in Alabama, ran for re-election, one county obviously manipulated several thousand votes to cause his loss. The county refused to perform a recount or to show the ballots. As Siegleman prepared to run again in 2006 he was subject to a very questionable prosecution, convicted, and spent four years in Federal Prison. He is still under probation, limited in speaking and traveling. Many of the good guys were punished, while many of the bad guys were promoted. See the recent documentary Atticus v. The Architect is available from the producer or Amazon videos.

* This would never have been discovered in a post-election audit, as central count absentee scanners are exempt from audit by some flawed theory (held by legislators and election officials) along the lines of “if one machine works correctly someplace at some time, all machines work perfectly all the time.” That is apparently why we don’t continue to inspect cars for emissions, vaccines, or baby food.

Testimony on Well-Intended Bill That Would End Publicly Verifiable Elections

On Monday we testified against H.B.5173 An Act Protecting the Privacy of Voters

Note that this version of partially protecting some voters includes preventing open, transparent, and publicly verifiable elections by any and all voters, candidates, and parties.

Here is my testimony <read>. This is the summary:

The heart and soul of democracy is justified trust in elections. [This Bill]would be a death blow to the heart of public verifiability. [It] would preclude independent verification of the lists and electors recorded as voting; it would preclude officials from demonstrating to the public that our elections are on the up and up.

Like paper ballots, voter registration records need to be open, transparent, and publicly verifiable. (And recorded on paper.)

On Monday we testified against H.B.5173 An Act Protecting the Privacy of Voters

Note that this version of partially protecting some voters includes preventing open, transparent, and publicly verifiable elections by any and all voters, candidates, and parties.

Here is my testimony <read>. This is the summary:

The heart and soul of democracy is justified trust in elections. [This Bill]would be a death blow to the heart of public verifiability. [It] would preclude independent verification of the lists and electors recorded as voting; it would preclude officials from demonstrating to the public that our elections are on the up and up.

Like paper ballots, voter registration records need to be open, transparent, and publicly verifiable. (And recorded on paper.)

In my verbal testimony, I added to my written concerns that procedures, regulations, and most importantly laws need to change to be consistent with this proposed law, so that election officials and clerks can know how to implement the law, given its many conflicts with current law.

I also noted that it was “Address Suppression Light”, given that it did not suppress all the other addresses which are suppressed under the existing address suppression program, like land records. The regular address suppression program also includes an ID card issued to those that have their addressed suppressed, so they can be positively identified in the polls. (There are books written, mostly for felons, on how to find addresses for police, judges, and prosecutors etc. Many of those avenues remain unprotected by this bill).

Here is all the testimony submitted <read>

On one side in favor, was Secretary of the State Denise Merrill and the Connecticut League of Women Voters.

On the other side against, included CTVotersCount, the FOI Commission, State Elections Enforcement Commission, and the Freedom of Information Council.

The ACLU seemed to be in favor of expanding some provisions and against others.