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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.

CT Secretary calls for 10 days of early voting starting in 2023

https://portal.ct.gov/SOTS/Press-Releases/2023-Press-Releases/Secretary-Thomas-Presents-Legislature-with-Recommendations-for-Early-Voting-Program From no ePollbooks currently approved and no early voting in place, this will be a tall order for the two elected registrars in each of our 169 towns. Likely tripling the number of pollworker days in most towns, requiring lots of recruiting and training and loads of novice pollworkers. This will also put a lot of work on the Secretary’s small staff to develop procedures, provide training, and approve all sorts of plans in a short time.

Editorial:..

Editorial:

Meanwhile in addition to likely approving new ePollbooks, the State has also recently acquired a new CVRs to be implemented. And presumably changes to our current Election Night Reporting system or replacing it with a new one in the new CVRS.

Also, quite a challenge for the Legislature to draft, finalize, and pass such a bill by March 31.

If this plan is approved, I can’t imagine anything but chaos.

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.

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 4 – Electronic Pollbooks

This is the fourth in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 3 – New Voting Machines>

In this post we will cover Electronic Poolbooks – Why, How, and When we should add electronic pollbooks. Next time we will cover the alternatives for early voting in 2024. Hint: they all have advantages and disadvantages.

Our understanding is that UConn, under the direction of the Secretary of the State’s (SOTS) Office is already evaluating electronic pollbooks. Presumably they could be selected by the SOTS sometime in 2023.

Why Electronic Pollbooks (ePollbooks)

The answer here is not as simple and clear as many would suggest. There are two advantages often touted for ePollobooks which are not actually true:

This is the fourth in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 3 – New Voting Machines>

Why Electronic Pollbooks (ePollbooks)

The answer here is not as simple and clear as many would suggest. There are two advantages often touted for ePollobooks which are not actually true:

First, they are often touted as speeding up checkin such that fewer pollworkers are required. Actually, they don’t significantly speed up checkin. Sometimes they speed it up a little, sometimes they slow it down a bit. There are several variables here: The model of electronic pollbooks employed, what the State checkin requirements are, checkers capabilities, checker training, and how the pollbooks are implemented (including are they connected to a central database which may slow down the process). Suffice to say that no matter if 1, 2, 3, 4, or more checkers and lines are required today, likely that number will still suffice and be required.

Most states require voters to sign a pollbook or sign electronically with an electronic pollbook, Connecticut does not. Some print a pass for the correct district for each voter – now Connecticut may need to do that to tell ballot clerks what ballot to give to a voter – especially for early voting. All these things take extra time on the part of checkers – or maybe save time in other states over what they were doing without ePollbooks.

Second, they save paper because paper pollbooks do not have to be printed. In fact, they still need to be printed as a backup for when electronic pollbooks fail. They fail for many reasons: software glitches, download glitches, power failures, hardware failures etc. So not only are paper backups required, the checkers must be ready to immediately fallback on paper pollbooks.

There are advantages:

Any voter can go to any line as ePollbooks are usually connected within a polling place and coordinate a master checklist between them. That can speed the process a bit and also allow for easily reducing the number of checkers in slow periods and similarly facilitate adding checkin lines.

A more comprehensive voter search may be available. Easily finding and restoring voters moved off the rolls for not voting recently, finding voters added supplementally, and finding which polling place to which a voters is assigned.

All checkers can handlevoters in multiple districts in a polling place (especially early voting places).

Especially for early voting places, if connected to the Central Voter Registration System (CVRS), then more than one polling place can handle voters in a municipality. Also, even when not connected a single polling place, they speed the setup for Election Day voter lists. They can simply be uploaded to the CVRS to then update pollbooks for Election Day.

Finally, they can save registrars a lot of time updating the CVRS with who voted after the election. Today it is a time-consuming manual process, to data enter who voted from the paper checklists.

How to Add Electronic Pollbooks

Most important in evaluating them is testing them with actual typical pollworkers and people acting like a range of average voters. How fast can the average pollworker type in the addresses and select voters? How fast can they do searches when the voter is not initially found? What does it take to setup the systems in a typical polling place? What additional time does it take to provide voters with receipts for which district they are in?

ePollbooks should be tested for compatibility, ease of use, and performance in downloads, uploads, and connectivity to the CVRS. And what happens during Election Day or early voting when connection is lost? Our assumption though is that especially on Election Day many, if not most, polling places will not be connected centrally, since many polling places do not have internet and may also be in poor cell communications territory.

And like new scanners, ePollbooks should be purchased and maintained by the State. Each polling place should have one station (likely a laptop) for the maximum number of checkers in that polling place, plus one or two extras. That is perhaps $500-1000 per station, plus annual maintenance.

Like implementing new machines and early voting it takes procedure development, planning, training of registrars and pollworkers.

But unlike some other changes ePollbooks can be implemented in stages: Start with a few polling places using them in parallel with paper pollbooks or just using them officially, verifying their effectiveness and improving procedures before a full rollout. Like other changes, they can best be implemented in lower volume elections or primaries.

When to Add Electronic Pollbooks

As we discussed in Part 2, change should be limited to one big thing at a time, if possible, done in part first, and avoiding a big change in even year elections.

There is good news for electronic pollbooks here. It would be possible to do a small test either in the September 2023 Municipal Primaries, the November 2023 Municipal Elections, or both. Then expended and made universal across the State in the 2024 Presidential Primaries or the August Primaries, so every municipality and checker could be experienced in time for the November 2024 election with some of their benefits available for early voting.

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 3 – New Voting Machines

This is the third in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 2 – Implementing Change> See <Part 4 – Electronic Pollbooks>

In this post we will cover New Voting Machines – Why, How, and When we should implement new voting systems.

Why New Voting Machines

The simple answer is for two reasons..

Stay tuned, we plan at least one more post before we get to the choices for implementing in-person Early Voting.

This is the third in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 2 – Implementing Change> See <Part 4 – Electronic Pollbooks>

In this post we will cover New Voting Machines – Why, How, and When we should implement new voting systems.

Why New Voting Machines

The simple answer is for two reasons:

First, Connecticut’s voting machines are ageing, aging both in technology and physically. For the most part they were acquired in 2007, two machines for each polling location and for central count absentee locations. A couple of years ago SOTS Denise Merrill acquired a stash of extras to have on hand to replace any that were beyond repair – they are also available for a song, used. A recent article articulates the view of many registrars, mostly through the eyes of a novice registrar. Her views contrast in several ways to ours: CT’s voting machines are ‘past their useful life’ and in need of replacing <read>. Let us annotate some of the statements in that article.

On Election Day this year, there were reports from several towns of malfunctioning tabulators.

That has been true for every election and primary since 2007. As far as we know, there are no official or unofficial statistics for the rate of failure and the causes, except those of CTElectionAudit.org which has random sample reports going back to 2007. (I am also Executive Director of the Citizen Audit.)

Here is a brief history of AccuVoteOS scanner problems in Connecticut:

Shortly after the scanners were deployed there were extensive problems with the memory cards used on each machine to hold the program and totals for each ballot for each machine. The state wisely had ordered two machines for each polling place, along with four memory cards. Most errors were found as each machine and all four memory cards were tested before the election, others immediately on election day, quickly replaced by the backup scanner or one of the extra cards. Several years later the State purchased a compatible more modern memory card. Since that purchase there have been very very few hardware problems with memory cards – there have been problems with incorrect programming or incompatible ballot printing, once again, usually discovered in pre-election testing.

According to the CTElectionAudit reports about 4-5 years ago there were growing problems with scanners failing, mostly due to wearing out of rollers which grab and move ballots through the scanners. The root cause was poor routine maintenance by the distributor, LHS Associates. LHS Associates is contracted by the State to program the memory cards and to perform scanner maintenance. Soon the problem went away and the CTElectionAudit statistics for roller and scanner problems went back to normal.

Preliminary CTElectionAudit results from the November 2022 election show that scanner roller problems remain at the normal level, with no significant additional scanner problems reported.

In Norwalk, for example, the sole tabulator at Brookside Elementary School was broken for about a half an hour, Democratic Registrar of Voters Stuart Wells said that day.

That is interesting, experienced registrar Stuart Wells and his staff were able to fix the scanner in half an hour. That is about what it takes to fire up a backup scanner or replace a memory card with a backup. A more interesting question is why that polling location did not have a backup scanner at the ready, since the State purchased more than enough to provide two to each polling place? And the number of polling places keeps shrinking with each redistricting. (I once worked for the Dean of Connecticut Registrars, the late Judy Boudreau. She made us fire up two scanners before the polls opened, such that a failing scanner could be replaced by the ready and waiting backup. Sounds like a good plan to me if registrars are concerned – the cost is an extra ballot box to hold the waiting backup scanner.)

Cara Gately, the Republican registrar in Darien, said “every town had some impact.”

During the primary in August, a rubber roller that pulls the paper ballot into the tabulator started to melt in the summer heat, Gately said, a problem she said people have called “melting tabulators.”

Those things are rubber and so in the heat in August they started to get gummy,” she said. “The texture changed, and there was residue on the ballot, which then gums things up and then they just stopped working.”

Every town is a large exaggeration! That was August. Many towns had problems like that. Many did not. The cause was simple, heat above the stated temperature maximum for operation of the scanners. Apparently, the failing machines were well maintained in time for November. I expect they cooked many pollworkers as well. Polling places should be air-conditioned and heated, machine specifications should be followed!

In order to fix broken tabulators, parts must be cannibalized from old ones from nearby states that have already replaced theirs.

We are not sure exactly which states those are. According to the Verified Voting Verifier they are still in use in about six states including New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

This is Gately’s first year as a registrar of voters, but she was told that “the current tabulators that the state has was the year that model got decommissioned.”

Not sure what that means or who was the authority that told Gately that. The AccuVoteOS is no longer manufactured due to no demand, however, it still meets the 2002 Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG). Those standards are still in effect for purchasing new voting machines today. However, they will be superseded by a recent major upgrade effective November 2023 to VVSG 2.0 standards. More on that later.

[SOTS Chief of Staff] Rosenberg said the process has begun to replace them, but that “it has to be done in a transparent way.”

“We’ll take requests for proposals and take a lot of public input,” he said.

We are hopeful that it will be transparent with a lot of public input!

[Gately] said she hopes that the tabulators will be replaced before the 2024 presidential election, or shortly thereafter. One year, she said, is doable, but five years “would make me nervous.

We will address timing later in this post.

Secondly, the second half of 2023 will be an ideal time to begin evaluating new scanners. That is because in 2020 the Election Assistance Commission approved VVSG 2.0 the first update to the 2002 VVSG standards which are in effect today. However, those will be effective in November 2023. That means that after that no one can purchase new jurisdiction wide machines that do not meet the new standards (Old machines may be purchased to add to existing machines in use.) So, during the second half of 2023 the three vendors will likely all be submitting machines to testing and then offering machines that meet the 2.0 standards.

We have been arguing for years that newer and better machines will become available and that Connecticut should, if possible, wait for then to purchase products that will be new rather than old out of the box. Now it is clearer when that will be possible.

How to Update Voting Machines

As we said in Part 1: In 2005 the SOTS Office initiated evaluation of voting systems for Connecticut with UConn testing, followed by public demonstrations of machines in four locations around the State, also with focus groups of registrars, those with disabilities, and technologists providing feedback on the machines. In late 2005 machines were selected. Then in November 2006 those machines were used in 25 municipalities in the even-year State election. Procedures were developed in 2006, refined in 2007 followed by registrar, pollworker, and public education, then implemented statewide in the September 2007 municipal primary. Still various problems, concerns, and complaints were found in the November 2007 elections.

That is the kind of process we favor. Note machines were evaluated starting as early as 2004, with the evaluation taking most of 2005. Then a few were used in November 2006 after some planning. Even more planning, procedure creation, training, and voter education occurred in 2007. Pretty much three full years.

There is probably less need for voter education this time as we are already use paper ballots. Perhaps a little less planning and official training, yet from the standpoint of officials the machines will be different, plans and training must cover new and changed features. On the other hand, there may be more need for thorough evaluation, testing, and research, since last time Connecticut was a little late to the game and many other states had already evaluated, purchased, and deployed systems meeting the 2002 standard. We might be one of a few acquiring them out of the gate this time.

We do have some inside information from other states regarding the current systems available from the three vendors, presumably the 2023 machines will have some of the same advantages and concerns. The machines are significantly slower, dependent on the length of ballots, ballot sides to be voted on, and on the number of bubbles on each side. That is partially because, unlike our current scanners, they make an image of each ballot side and then interpret that image, creating a Cast Vote Record (CVR) of the votes on each ballot. Otherwise, that is a benefit facilitating certain kinds of audits and recounts, along with making Ranked Choice Voting feasible. Yet, for those benefits we will need an extra one or two scanners in many polling places. For instance, in my town, Glastonbury, we have six polling places where in a tight presidential election we can expect 3,500 to 4,000 voters. It’s doubtful one scanner can handle that. However, perhaps firing up and using two, and having a backup delivered if one of them fails would be sufficient. Some towns, like Greenwich have huge ballots for municipal Representative Town Meeting elections, may need more machines to handle those elections.

Beyond that some central count absentee ballot locations may benefit from high-speed scanners. They are expensive and may not be necessary if enough regular speed scanners are purchased.

Finally, we are aware of one brand where the rejection of over voted ballots may not work as our current scanners work – in a much less acceptable way. That needs to be evaluated and perhaps a fix negotiated with the vendor(s). Maybe there will be other issues uncovered. The sooner they are uncovered the better. We do not want to find them in an election after a huge long-term purchase!

Perhaps obviously, the State needs to pay for the acquisition, maintenance, procedure development, and training for the new machines as they did last time.

A couple of years ago, SOTS Denise Merrill estimated $20 Million for new machines. I estimated $12 Million. We could both be right, just estimating different things such as including long term maintenance. On the other hand, I had available information that exposed the actual selling price of the equipment available then, much lower than the list prices.

When to Implement New Machines

As we discussed in Part 2, change should be limited to one big thing at a time, if possible, done in part first, and avoiding a big change in even year elections.

Last time it took about three years from the beginning of the evaluation to the final implementation. Maybe two years or so will be enough this time. Since machines to test may not be available until mid-2023 it seems the natural time to implement new machines would be the 2025 municipal elections – starting with the September 2025 municipal primaries, giving a short time to tweak things for a full roll-out in November 2025.

Changing a machine will also likely require changes in how the machines are programmed. Right now, our Election Night Reporting System is completely separate from the voting machines. If that stays the same, then there will be less change at once!

What about 2024 or 2023? Both are too soon for a thoughtful evaluation, procedure development, and training. In 2023 VVSG 2.0 machines may not even be available to evaluate until after the election. Also 2024 is the worst possible time since it is a presidential election, and also likely to have the first running of in-person Early Voting.

Stay tuned, we plan at least one more post before we get to the choices for implementing in-person Early Voting.

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 2 – Implementing Change

This is the second in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 3 – New Voting Systems> or <Part 1 – Expectations>

In this post we will cover Implementing Change – how election changes have been implemented in Connecticut and the risks of doing too much too fast and at the most challenging times. In the future we will address more specific issues associated with some of the changes coming. Then get to the tradeoffs in implementing in-person early voting.

Implementing Change

As we discussed last time, one of the big changes coming is in-person early voting.

In addition to that:

In the last few months, the Secretary of the State (SOTS) and his office have selected and are presumably beginning implementing a replacement for the Central Voters Registration System (CVRS)…

Do one change at a time, test as much as possible, then test the change on a small scale, and implement it system wide at the least disruptive time...

This is the second in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 3 – New Voting Systems> or <Part 1 – Expectations>

Implementing Change

As we discussed last time, one of the big changes coming is in-person early voting.

In addition to that:

In the last few months, the Secretary of the State (SOTS) and his office have selected and are presumably beginning implementing a replacement for the Central Voters Registration System (CVRS). That same system may replace the current Election Night Reporting System (ENR)
UConn under the direction of the SOTS has begun evaluating various electronic pollbooks (ePollbooks).
There are calls for replacing our aging scanners with newer models. Actually, the second half of 2023 would be an ideal time for UConn to begin a technical evaluation.

Not just for the State, but for any institution there are good methods for implementing change: Do one change at a time, test as much as possible, then test the change on a small scale, and implement it system wide at the least disruptive time.

Yet, when it comes to election systems, some changes can’t be done piecemeal: Early voting must be available to all voters at the same time or it would be a civil rights/equality issue. The CVRS must be implemented statewide at the same time (it can be implemented between elections, but some of its functions must work on election day and the days before – functions that are not generally done at other times of the year, under circumstances of demand for creating pollbooks right before the election and registration checking on election day.

Using new voting machines or new ePollbooks can be done in a few municipalities first.

Connecticut has a good recent record of planning such changes, but not a great record in the actual implementation.

In 2005 the SOTS Office initiated evaluation of voting systems for Connecticut with UConn testing, followed by public demonstrations of machines in four locations around the State, also with focus groups of registrars, those with disabilities, and technologists providing feedback on the machines. In late 2005 machines were selected. Then in November 2006 those machines were used in 25 municipalities in the even year State election. Procedures were developed in 2006, refined in 2007 followed by registrar, pollworker, and public education, then implemented statewide in the September 2007 municipal primary. Still various problems, concerns, and complaints were found in the November 2007 elections. There will few problems. Many of those complaints and concerns were normal for the transition from lever machines to scanners – a couple of years later New York went through a similar process with a different brand of scanner with the same problems, concerns, and complaints. This was a positive example of how extensive evaluation, planning, and training can have a great result.

In 2013 the state implemented Election Day Registration, with several problems which we had predicted – mainly that by law being in line by 8:00 was insufficient to be allowed the opportunity to register and vote. But those problems were not addressed. In 2014 those problems resulted in long lines at EDR locations with many voters turned away, including those still in line at 8:00pm. Despite news stories across the State those problems were not addressed in law for several years. The long lines somewhat reduced still remain, however, now anyone in line by 8:00 can have the opportunity to register and vote. This is an example of inadequate planning and a deaf ear by the SOTS, the General Assembly, and election officials, many of whom really did not have sympathy for voters who failed to register by the regular deadlines.

In 2012 the SOTS and registrars implemented the new Election Night Reporting system in parallel with the regular system. It was dead on arrival as polling place moderators refused or were incapable of inputing reams of data after a long day via their smart phones (many did not even have or understand smart phones at the time.) Once again this was all predicted. The system was designed completely in isolation from the real world. There was no feedback from actual officials, no testing with the actual polling place officials. Worse the SOTS Office attributed the failure to the officials (Even today I would be challenged to enter that much data from my cell phone, after a long day. Others are in polling places with poor cell coverage and no internet.) Finally, years later the system was redesigned and after a couple of elections was working well with officials in town halls putting in the data from desktops and laptops. Once again, a predictable failure abetted by tone deaf State officials.

Lessons We Hopefully Will Follow

Do one change at a time, test as much as possible, then test the change on a small scale, and implement it system wide at the least disruptive time.

There are a lot of calls for multiple changes in a very short period, from the public, from advocates, and from election officials. In subsequent posts we will address some of those changes in the light of these pressures and the lessons we hopefully will follow. Then get to the tradeoffs in implementing in-person early voting.

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 1 – Expectations

Having passed the Early Voting Constitutional Amendments in November, everyone expects the General Assembly will pass implementing legislation in 2023 and give some time for officials to implement it, i.e. the Secretary of the State’s Office to detail procedures and registrars to implement them.

We plan a series of posts. Today we will start with the expectations of various groups, as we understand them.

Voters

We can only speculate what voters expect, certainly they are not a homogeneous group. They have read and seen in the news that Connecticut is one of only four states that do not support some form of early voting (in-person early voting and/or no-excuse mail-in voting). They likely understand that this amendment only authorizes in-person early voting…

We plan a series of posts. Today we will start with the expectations of various groups, as we understand them.

This is the first in a series on Early Voting in Connecticut. See <Part 2 – Implementing Change>

Voters

From the news leading up to the November vote they may have learned that early voting will eliminate lines at polling places in Connecticut and significantly increase turn-out. (As we will discuss in a later installment, they will likely be disappointed on both counts).

They may be thinking that once Connecticut also passes the no-excuse mail-in voting Constitutional Amendment in 2026, that shortly after we will be just like California and Colorado which have both forms of early voting and mail ballots to each voter before an election so they can just send them in. All we can say is mostly, but not so fast.

They may also be thinking of Georgia which has many days of early voting yet with notorious long lines during early voting. How can that be if early voting is supposed to eliminate lines? Stay tuned.

How many days and hours of early voting do they expect, its likely undefined and all over the lot. They probably expect to vote on weekends, before work, lunch time, or in the early evening. Some may expect early voting at their usual polling place, while that is done rarely or at all in other states.

Like others they expect early voting will be very similar to voting on election day. Checking in, getting a ballot, submitting it to a voting machine. A chance to get registration issues resolved, spoiling a ballot and getting another one if necessary, etc.

Like the Good Government Groups most voters expect that early voting will start soon, likely nobody will expect to wait beyond the 2024 presidential election.

Good Government Groups

Many may expect something along the lines of a recent article which highlights the ACLU’s expectations (and those of the Secretary of the State and others.) How Long Should Connecticut Voters Get For Early Voting? <read>

Others may be expecting early voting along the lines of the latest version of H.R.1, S.1, and The For the People Act that was not passed by the last congress. That bill specified a minimum of 15 contiguous days of early voting, all at least 10 hours a day and the same hours each day of early voting.

That bill also specified counting of votes to begin by 14 days before the election, the same voting experience as a polling place on election day, and that votes could not be totaled until the polls closed on election day. It said that early voting was not necessary with sufficient no-excuse mail-in voting.

Election Officials

Election officials are under a lot of pressure in Connecticut. Some of the frivolous and redundant Freedom of Information requests seen in other states, public suspicion, and increasing work requirements, coupled with budgets controlled by each municipal government which my not be sympathetic to the workload, especially in small towns. Over 40% of registrars quit between November 2021 and July 2022 with others not running for re-election in November 2022. Many are tired and perhaps one-half low on experience, with few willing to take a job with low pay and many demands.

Registrars look at early voting requirements as significant. They are correct. A small town may have eight officials at one polling place on election day for a total of 17 hours. 15 days of early voting would require 120 pollworker days for officials, opening for 10 hours of voting would mean 12 hour days for officials. Few would be willing to work more than one or two days like that for each election. Even in my town with 6 polling places with about 70 election day pollworkers, including absentee counting, adding 120 pollworker days would be quite a challenge.

It is a lot more than recruiting and training all the novice pollworkers. It is also supporting them from the registrars’ offices during early voting, while most of those offices are already on overtime (paid or not) doing everything to prepare for election day. Early voting would add greatly to those demands. It includes finding an early voting location(s) that could be dedicated for all those days with enough parking. Most towns close and use schools for election day, they cannot close them for even a few additional days – they could be used on weekends but not during the week.

With budget problems the registrars (and municipalities) expect reimbursement from the State. Depending on many variables it could cost $1,500 to $2,500 per day per location for early voting plus a few thousand overhead to plan for it initially. Four days of early voting could total about $1,500,000 for each election and primary. 14 days might total over $3,500,000. In presidential years, including primaries over $10,500,000.

Election Integrity Advocates

Actually, we only have a few requirements that hopefully will not be too costly and paid for by the State. A one-time charge for additional memory cards and beefed up security under $500,000.

Like the For the People Act, we would like to see early voting be like voting on election day; requiring that votes will not be totaled until after the polls close on election day, i.e. similar to absentee ballot counting, early voting moderators would supervise the hand counting of a few ballots and write-ins late in the day on election day and then after 8:00pm close early voting machines and print the tapes. This should not be a surprise as today absentee ballots cannot be totaled until 8:00pm. The reason is to avoid the leaking of results that can cause voters, candidates, and parties to try to increase the vote knowing they are close to losing or on the other hand to simply give up.

The early voting ballots must be subject to post-election audit. Either each early voting district must be added to the drawing or each day of early voting must be added to the drawing. Subjecting each day to an audit will require ballots and machine counts be segregated by day (a good idea in any case), add more batches to be audited, yet reduce the number of ballots that need to be counted.

In addition, Connecticut needs new and enhanced security of voted ballots, voting machines, and memory cards between when early voting starts and the end of election day. Right now, in most municipalities, we have insufficient security, with ballots held in storage where multiple single individuals can gain access to voted ballots and machines undetected for hours. (Those ballot bags and plastic boxes and tabulators with seals are a good idea, yet insufficient to protect ballots or machines.) At minimum each day’s ballots and machines should be held in very secure storage with at least two padlocks with separate keys for each registrar and their deputy. Better still that plus secured by the municipal clerk allowing and recording all access by both registrars to the ballots and machines. Similar to a recent Secretary of the State’s directive to Fairfield: Access To Voting Tabulators In Fairfield Required State Intervention <read>

Summary

Not everyone will have their expectations met. Perhaps most will be partially or mostly disappointed.

We will have lots more to say in subsequent posts. We will suggest the tough choices before the General Assembly, discuss some of the arguments we have heard, and finally some recommendations. We will also address at some point the other changes expected in the next few years, such as new voting machines, mail-in voting, and electronic pollbooks and why we cannot expect do everything at once, successfully.

For several reasons we will recommend starting cautiously. Today, we have just scratched the surface.

Hand counting alone not the solution to election integrity

Some in Nevada want to eliminate machine counting altogether in elections. Not a good idea in our opinion, especially for the United States.

Editorial: The best solution, in our opinion, is machine counting followed by sufficient audits and in close votes full hand recounts. Why?…

Some in Nevada want to eliminate machine counting altogether in elections. Not a good idea in our opinion, especially for the United States. Recently they started on an experiment in Nevada, stopped by their Supreme Court, for good reason: <read>

The Nevada secretary of state’s office has ordered the hand counting of mail-in ballots in Nye County, Nevada to stop, after the state Supreme Court said the method violates state law.

In a letter sent Thursday night, Nevada’s deputy secretary for elections Mark Wlaschin told Nye County’s interim clerk Mark Kampf that local officials “must cease immediately” counting ballots. The counting, he added, “may not resume until after the close of polls on November 8, 2022.”

In a statement Friday morning, Nye County spokesman Arnold Knightly indicated local officials still were looking for a way to resume the laborious task – a step they are pursuing as a precursor to potentially ditching voting machines in future elections.

Editorial: The best solution, in our opinion, is machine counting followed by sufficient audits and in close votes full hand recounts. Why?

Hand counting is error prone. It can be accurate, but accurate counting and totaling across batches, teams, polling places and jurisdiction it just as hard as counting a batch of ballots accurately.
Hand counting is time consuming, especially in the U.S. where we have huge ballots with many votes to be counted. It can take many days and hours to count our huge ballots. This adds to how error prone the process can be. We also want the results right away, on election night or shortly thereafter.
Are we really ready to pay the price? And end up with just as risky a process? I think not.

But if some insist, then count originally by machine followed soon after by full hand counts. Then batch by batch the hand counts can be matched to machine counts and original hand counts of ballots that could not be counted by machine. Then compare batch totals to the machine totals. And when they do not match, hand count again until the results can be reconciled to determine which count is accurate.

No Susan, “top two” primary is a flawed centerist dream, not a panacea

Susan Bigelow’s Op-Ed at CTNewsJunkie: Lesson from Levy’s Win: Open Up the Primaries. Argues for opening up primary voting to all voters, easier ballot access, and for “top two” primaries…

Our Editorial

First, we agree its all two difficult to get on the primary or election ballots for all but party endorsed candidates, or those like Levy and Lumaj.

The other two suggestions remind one of the Great Centerist dream, that there is a large number of voters not aligned with each party, they are all for business taxes being low and corporate welfare being being high, against the polls that show overwhelming support for climate action, medicare for all etc. They are alleged to align with the corporate lobbyists and interests that control legislative bodies and party leaders. Yet somehow that always fail as Andrew Wang’s latest new party is…However, the top-two has not worked out so well as we detailed in a previous post, reviewing its application in California: NY: don’t follow CA in making “Top Two” error , as we summarized back then…

Susan Bigelow’s Op-Ed at CTNewsJunkie: Lesson from Levy’s Win: Open Up the Primaries <read> Argues for opening up primary voting to all voters, easier ballot access, and for “top two” primaries.

Closed primaries get criticized for enabling extremism, a criticism that seems absolutely valid in the aftermath of Levy’s win. Who reliably turns out for primaries in the dead of August? The most activist, the most partisan, and often the most extremist voters, that’s who. And if turnout is low enough, this small minority of voters can swing an election.

The parties need to open up their primaries to everyone, though that alone won’t really fix the situation. There may be some moderating influence from unaffiliated voters, but the problem of primaries being inherently partisan remains. It’s also notoriously difficult to get on the primary ballot at all for anyone who doesn’t have enough support at a party convention.

What I’d like to see is a system employed in other states and countries: a two-round election. The first round is open to all candidates, with the top two vote-getters moving on to the final round. This takes the party out of the primary process altogether, which is healthier for democracy. It also guarantees that the eventual winner is elected by an actual majority of voters.

Editorial

First, we agree its all two difficult to get on the primary or election ballots for all but party endorsed candidates, or those like Levy and Lumaj.

We are fine with trying open primaries, we have not heard of any problems there. Not so sure they actually support the centerist dream in reality.

However, the top-two has not worked out so well as we detailed in a previous post, reviewing its application in California: NY: don’t follow CA in making “Top Two” error <read>, as we summarized back then:

This all goes to show why it is called a Jungle Primary. We prefer to call it a Crap Shoot, because, like many reforms, its intention is to correct a perceived past problem, but just replaces one imperfect system with another – fighting the last war.

(And who said that centrism is a worthy goal – its usually defined only in the vision of a particular pundit or politician, completely in agreement with that pundit’s own views)