Our Editorials | CTVotersCount.org

The Risky Way to Make an Important, Costly Decision

On March 11th, Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, released an RFP along with a Press Release: Secretary of the State Aims to Revolutionize Voting Devices for Persons with Disabilities in Connecticut.

From what I can determine, this is a rushed, unsound plan. It is likely to be wasteful, risks chaos in November, and unlikely to satisfy the needs of those with disabilities, taxpayers, or polling place officials.

On March 11, Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, released an RFP along with a Press Release: Secretary of the State Aims to Revolutionize Voting Devices for Persons with Disabilities in Connecticut<read> Invitation to bid <read>

We note that:

The whole time from RFP to response gives vendors just 20 days to respond. That suggests that there is some vendor already selected and the process will be superficial.
All vendor questions are due only 6 days after the RFP was issued.
There is a very short two month period between RFP submission and the start of the project, June 1. Leaving little time for things like demonstrations of the system, selection, and then vendor preparation.
The roll-out of this significant system to polling place officials and voters with disabilities is apparently scheduled for the November Presidential Election, with no pilot use.
We question the accuracy of the number of systems to be acquired, since it is significantly less than the number of polling places in the 2014 Federal Election.
Persons with disabilities should also be concerned that their is no system provided today, and none contemplated here, for Election Day Registration (EDR) locations. One of the many shortcomings allowed by not defining EDR locations as “Polling Places”.

A significant portion of my career was spend evaluating and implementing off-the-shelf and custom commercial software products for a large insurance company, with another portion spent developing and marketing software to large commercial and government organizations. From what I can determine, this is a rushed, unsound plan. It is likely to be wasteful, risks chaos in November, and unlikely to satisfy the needs of those with disabilities, taxpayers, or polling place officials.

Clearly, the current system for those with disabilities, the IVS, is unsatisfactory and needs replacement. At most it serves only those with sight impairment, and hardly serves them. It can take a long time to vote, sometimes hours to complete the process, and fails to provide a secret vote as required by the Connecticut Constitution. Most of those who have tried the system have chosen not to use it again. The system is difficult to set-up, is a challenge for officials, and is dependent on dedicated phone lines being installed in every polling place. It is subject to failure in a power or communications emergency. Yet, we are not aware of any people with disabilities pushing for change.

We long for the previous administration of Susan Bysiewicz, and their creative and effective evaluation of HAVA compliant voting systems in 2006. Had they not done such an open careful plan we may have ended up with a monstrosity of a voting system. We came close but the careful process provided advocates the time to make the case that the decision should be reversed and the process restarted. Connecticut cut costs in half and implemented optical scanning voting rather than expensive, unauditable touch screens. Some attributes of that process should be emulated in procuring a system to replace the IVS (which itself was not subject to a thorough public process):

There was much more time for vendors to respond in 2006. There were open public vendor conferences.
Three systems were subject to a large public test in several locations around the state where citizens could try the systems and provide feedback.
The UConn Voter Center tested all the machines and provided reports on their technical suitability.
Focus groups were created to provide more feedback. As I recall, focus groups of Election Officials, Persons with Disabilities, and Independent Technical Experts.
UConn political scientists independently analyzed public input and conducted the focus groups.

Replacing the IVS is a somewhat smaller decision than was made in 2006, yet it deserves time for vendors, input from at least the disability community and election officials, along with a careful thoughtful implementation process. There is no evidence of that in what is apparent in the process as described in the RFP and the press release. Perhaps a sound process would recommend waiting a year of two to possibly obtain a system better than that available today.

The Iowa Caucus vs. a Primary

There are several differences between a caucus and a primary election. These differences are glaring, especially in the case of the Iowa Democratic Presidential Caucus. Like all elections, the rules, eligibility, and voting methods vary from state to state. In presidential primaries and caucuses they can vary from party to party.

Here is our list of important concerns with the Iowa Democratic Caucus. All things considered, democracy would be better served by a primary than the Iowa Caucus.

Here is our list of important concerns with the Iowa Democratic Caucus. Certainly others could add to the list.

Unlike an election many voters are disenfranchised. To participate, voters must be present for two to three hours at a designated place and time:
- For some disabled votes, particularly the elderly, and the temporarily sick, this precludes participation.
- Weather can be a consideration varying by age, distance to the polls, and regional conditions.
- For those required to work, this precludes participation: Police, fire, hospital staff, etc. Workers in warehouses, fast food, retail etc. Caregivers, parents without babysitters.
- For those who must be away: Business trips, overseas voters, and those attending funerals etc.
Unlike an election it is not a secret ballot. Many may be intimidated either directly or by fear of actual or imagined pressure and repercussions:
- Party members, office holders, appointed officials, and civil service employees, or those aspiring to be, may feel pressure go along with party regulars or officials.
- Employees and union members may feel pressure to go a particular way base on the views of bosses, supervisors, union leaders, or co-workers.
- Church and community organization members may feel pressure to go along with leaders or peers.
- Some may want to go along with family members and neighbors.
The vote is a headcount in public and thus could be more transparent. Unfortunately, the transparency seems to be limited.
- The party has refused to release the actual counts of attendees and those siding with each candidate. Those numbers should be posted at the event, agreed to by everyone and provided in a way that is transparent and verifiable.
- The rules for translating votes into delegates are complex. They involve careful calculation to the number finally supporting each candidate and the number originally present at the caucus even if they do not finally vote. The rules can easily be misunderstood or intentionally misapplied.

All things considered, democracy would be better served by a primary than the Iowa Caucus.

Editorial: No Crisis in CT, unless we make one

There will be a time to change deliberately, once better systems are available and proven.

Last month the Brennan Center released a report: America’s Voting Technology Crisis <article> <report>

Launching several articles like this one in the Washington Post: America’s voting machines are in need of a serious upgrade <read>

It is true that many states have risky DRE (touch screen) voting machines that should never have been purchased and should have been replaced long ago. Not just because they are old and old technology, but because the were never a safe option for voting.
It is true that we only keep our smart phones for a couple of years, yet we keep our telephones, our routers, our printers, and fax machines for much longer. Even our autos are highly computerized and, as flawed as they may be, we expect them to keep going for us and others for a couple of decades.
It is true that there are better voting machines available today than those purchased years ago, yet many are relatively old technology. None have been federally certified for years, based on out-of-date standards. The newly reactivated Elections Assistance Commission is working to create new standards, while restarting and improving Federal certification.
It is also true that LA County and Travis County, TX have significant projects aimed a creating much better, and much more economical systems. None have been completed, independently evaluated, or available for purchase. Here is the fine print from the Brennan article:

Currently, [LA County chief election official, Dean] Logan is working with the design consulting firm IDEO to develop the specifications for an electronic-ballot marking device and associated components of a comprehensive, modernized voting system. Next, the county will move forward with a contract to manufacture the device. On the software side, Logan envisions the system relying on open-source software, which will be maintained in-house at the registrar’s office. Fortunately, Logan’s office has a robust IT department that maintains the county’s existing vote tabulation system, and will maintain the county’s next system.

Logan believes the project has the potential to change the voting equipment marketplace for the better. “The design approach we are taking should result in lower-cost voting systems and market expansion,” he said. “I think it has the ability to move the regulatory environment and the market to a more competitive landscape that could allow jurisdictions to replace systems at a lower cost than in the past.”

Logan plans to begin implementing the system in 2017, and achieve a complete turnover of equipment by the 2020 election cycle. Elections officials across the country told us they are watching this project closely, and are excited to see what Logan and his team develop.

The bottom line is that dramatically more capable, safe, and less expensive voting systems will become available over the next five to ten years. We could waste a lot of money and opportunity by purchasing and implementing “new” systems today, unless absolutely necessary.

Connecticut has older technology optical scan voting machines. At a huge cost we could purchase newer systems, which are incrementally improved. Meanwhile our systems seem to be functioning pretty much as well as when they were originally deployed, in 2007. (There is some anecdotal evidence that they may need more effective maintenance attention, yet the failure rate is low, and every polling place has a backup machine.) As we have said many times, Connecticut has the best type of system legally available – paper ballots, scanned under observation in the polls, followed by post-election audits and recanvasses. Even in those rare cases where a machine fails (perhaps a handful of machines in about 750 polling places in each election), voting can continue while the backup machine is fired up.

For Connecticut this is a time for our legendary “Land of Stead Habits”. A real crisis would be a knee-jerk reaction to claims of a crisis. It would be the National reaction to 2000 and the Help America Vote Act all over again – in that case Connecticut had a relatively deliberate process, that in the end made the right choice – a year earlier it would likely have resulted in DREs and years of the bad situations highlighted by Brennan.

There will be a time to change deliberately, once better systems are available and proven.

Common Sense: Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced

There is an analogy with laws, including election laws. Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced. Missing one of the three, all value is lost.

Note: This is then eleventh post in an occasional series on Common Sense Election Integrity, summarizing, updating, and expanding on many previous posts covering election integrity, focused on Connecticut. <next> <previous>

In one of his books, Gerry Weinberg pointed out that employee evaluations should be multiplicative not additive, that is, the various dimensions of performance and capabilities should be multiplied rather than added to determine the overall value of an employee. e.g. If my writing and verbal communication are poor, no matter how much technical knowledge I have, what I can contribute is very limited, yet with just average skills in every other area matched with high technical knowledge one can accomplish a lot. Similarly with great interpersonal skills, yet poor technical judgement, I can be less than valuable!

There is an analogy with laws, including election laws. Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced e.g.

Sufficient – Laws have to be sufficient to prevent that which they are designed to prevent, or to protect what they have been designed to protect. e.g. In Connecticut we have weak ballot security laws: They do not protect all ballots until they are needed for post-election audits; some of the security requirements are ambiguous, open to multiple interpretations; and are based on unwarranted trust in weak seals and entirely lacking in seal protocols.
Enforceable – There has to be a reasonable means of enforcing the law. Once again, we point to ballot security in Connecticut where it is generally believed (ambiguous law) that two individuals from opposing parties must be involved in any access to ballots, yet most ballots are locked in cabinets in rooms with a single lock, with both registrars and often others having access to a key, along with a log of access maintained by an honor system.
Enforced – In reality the must actually be enforced. In recent years we have seen many examples, from banking fraud, leaks of classified information by high-level officials, and campaign finance laws.

We were reminded of this limitations today with an article, one among several recently, on the Federal Elections Commission: More Soft Money Hard Law <read> The FEC is stymied by partisan gridlock.

We all have seen the lack of strong enforcement against the fraudulent activities of big banks, their management, and employees. Or, perhaps less known, existing trade agreements with environmental and labor protections which are ignored, rendering the provisions that sound powerful, generally meaningless.

So, whenever we ask for sufficient election laws, we remind that more is needed. They must also be enforceable and enforced. Missing one of these three components, all value is lost.

Courant Editorial: Cheap Way To Boost Turnout

Today the Hartford Courant printed an editorial citing the Citizen Audit’s latest report: Cheap Way To Boost Turnout

The headline was different from the online version posted earlier:

Good Election Info On Town Websites Can Boost Turnout

March 2, 2015

It’s simple: Just providing voters with election information is key to improving voter turnout, according to a volunteer election watchdog group that has recently released a study of municipal websites.

The group, the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit, found many of this state’s 169 municipal websites surprisingly lacking in basic information — like “what’s on the ballot?” and “where do I vote?” —- that one would think would be posted before an election. (1)

Putting such information online and keeping it current ought to be a top priority in towns.

Such basic information can, as the Citizen Audit believes, drive up voter turnout. And it wouldn’t cost very much.

Every municipality won’t match Cornwall, which, with 74.77 percent turnout in the last general election, was the small-town winner of the secretary of the state’s Democracy Cup. But every city and town should make it a goal.

The audit’s study suggests that for many municipalities it’ll be a stretch.

The study of municipal websites, finished last year just before the November election, found that only 28 percent of them said what was on the ballot. Only 56 percent provided the date of the next election. Only 64 percent told people where to vote. Only 15 percent posted results of the 2013 municipal election.

Many websites didn’t tell people they can register to vote online. Many had broken links and outdated information.

That’s not much of an incentive to vote.

See the full report at CTElectionAudit.org.

(1) Corrected. One extra line included inadvertently in earlier version of post 3/4/2015

Editorial: Diagnosis before cure. Planning before plunging ahead.

We agree in part with the other critics, that we need radical change in Connecticut election administration. Yet, we need a carefully considered approach and a deliberate implementation of change. Our recommended approach is to do for elections what we have done for probate: Regionalize, Prioritize, and Economize. It won’t be easy, simple, or cheap in the short run, yet simply moving local administration to municipal clerks as many suggest would be a band-aid, with many of the same limitations and risks of the current system.

In the wake of the recent election day problems in Hartford, elsewhere in this election, and in previous elections, we have heard may cries to reform the system. To some extent, to us, they often sound like “Do something! Do anything! Change the system now!” For example <here>, <here>, and <here>. Perhaps Senator Chris Murphy best sums up the frustration and the problems in recent elections:<here>.

The Democrat called it “inexcusable” to have breakdowns, such as polling places in Hartford not opening on time during this month’s election – a mishap that prompted President Barack Obama to call in to WNPR-FM and plead with voters who couldn’t cast ballots to return to the polls later in the day. Murphy also pointed to other instances, such as in 2010 when there weren’t enough ballots in Bridgeport and in 2012 when there weren’t enough workers at the West Hartford polls.,,

A former state senator, Murphy said Connecticut is well past the point of incremental reform and needs comprehensive changes. He said the “balkanized” election system where autonomous local registrars run elections with little state oversight has “resulted in major problem after major problem” and stunted the development of voting technology in the state.

Here is what the public and politicians, in general, do not know:

Running elections anywhere takes special training and expertise, much of which comes from experience working in the polls and managing elections on election days. Experienced gained one day at a time, for the most part, with one to three elections per year.
Outside of experienced officials in leadership positions, such as registrars, deputies, and moderators, nobody understands the complete picture of how the parts fit together, or how it could be modified, without damaging the system. Even many of those officials do not have the prospective of the requirements in different size municipalities across Connecticut. Nor how the alternatives work, or do not work in other states.
Elected officials, except registrars, are naturally barred from election administration activities. Very few have any direct experience and little knowledge of the administration of elections – they do understand how to get elected, the requirements to get on the ballot, and campaign finance rules.
Other states with radically different elections administration organization had problems in this election and other recent elections. Corruption, votes lost, massive absentee voting fraud, unauditable machines, questionable results that cannot be verified, long lines, voters denied access to the polls, and results provided days and weeks later than Connecticut.
Moving the process from elected registrars to municipal clerks is not as simple as it sounds. Registering voters is very similar to what clerks do. Today many do registrations for registrars in small towns. Administering elections is different, planning a one day event, understanding and executing all the special activities before and after election day, recruiting a large one day staff, and then managing that huge event. Of course, clerks can learn and do elections, but many of the training and staffing challenges would remain, many of the constraints and benefits of local administration would remain. It is like saying that if the sewer department is working well, let them take over snow plowing and emergency management because the roads were not cleared well by public works; Or why not hand over managing defense to the Post Office since they wear uniforms and manage to deliver the mail so well.
Adding responsibility to the Secretary of the State will not cure many of the problems. In some cases that would be a good idea, in others not so good. The Secretary should have independent authority to call for “discrepancy recanvasses” in cases like Bridgeport 2010 and Hartford absentee ballots ‘s in 2014. (So should the State Elections Enforcement Commission). But having a strong Secretary of the State is not a cure all. The SOTS and few in the SOTS Office have basic and comprehensive experiences in local elections administration, even while they have a unique prospective not shared by others. (For what can go wrong, consider Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2000 and 2004 or Kansas today. For the limitations of a bi-partisan board of elections, see NY). There are advantages and disadvantages of any system.

Everyone should understand and recognize:

Radical change takes time and care to accomplish successfully and well. Radical change means large risks of failure. Speed without expertise is a formula for failure. Look no farther than the original Obamacare web site for an example. Look at our success instilling democracy in and rebuilding Iraq.
Every system takes time to change. Like rebuilding a railroad while keeping trains running. You may need the old system while the new system is being constructed, comprehensive education and testing is necessary, just like obtaining and testing new railroad cars took several years of planning and testing.
Change costs money, for making the change, and for running the new system. Electronic pollbooks, perhaps $2-3 million dollars, plus connecting every polling place to the Internet (Electronic pollbooks improves quality and efficiency, but do not make checking in any faster nor require fewer lines). Providing the opportunity for “voters to vote at any polling place” is hugely expensive, can delay results, and can take a lot of extra expense to avoid the risks of fraud, error, and protect the secret/anonymous vote.
It is human nature to claim that every wanted change, is a cure for the current problem (see: 9/11 Patriot Act). When we want to increase turnout, every change is touted as a panacea for low turnout (Early voting decreases turnout, but is touted to increase it, as is every other reform. Some reforms do increase turnout). Similarly, every possible reform for Connecticut’s recent troubles will be touted to speed results, shorten lines, and magically prevent all human errors.
As we have stated before, it is also human nature to ignore costs when we want something, yet complain of very small cost when we do not want to do something

Editorial, Diagnosis before cure. Planning before plunging ahead.

Yet Rome was not built in a day or a year or two. Nor was probate reform ( where implementation took from 2009 to 2011). We need a thoughtful approach to reform. We should investigate what works well in other states, and fit the best to Connecticut. We should look at the alternatives and choose wisely, and dare we mention, funding the reforms adequately. Change costs money for the change itself, and for the hoped for better result.

We see three stages 1) Investigating, proposing, estimating costs, and choosing the change (e.g. regional professional election administration) 2) Planning the change. (Exactly how many regions, exactly where they are, planning staffing, conversion tasks, along with the steps and effort involved in the implementing the change), and 3) actually implementing the change.

Regionalizaing elections is more complex than consolidating the probate system. I suspect at least a year, maybe two for the 1st stage, another year for the 2nd stage and two years for the third. How long did it take to plan and build t the new New Haven to, Springfield rail line? Or just purchasing, testing, and deploying new rail cars?

Let us act deliberatly to actually improve elections

We are amazed by the number of election integrity issues raised by this election and the flurry of suggestions for improvement, led by the Hartford Courant. Yet in all the excitement and rush to judgement and improvement, among the good intentions and good ideas, there is also a misunderstanding of the system, ideas that are not feasible, uninformed, and that would make a worse system.

In fact, its too early to rush to judgement with knee-jerk reactions, without deliberate, complete plans for reform. Yet, we have attempted to counter errors and support good directions in letters to the editor and blog comments. Here we archive some of those articles, editorials, and some of our (edited) comments.

On Sunday the Courant had an article, an investigative report, an opinion piece, and an editorial mostly focused on Hartford’s mess-up, and the allegation that our votes are reported slower than the rest of the nation. The article and the investigative report are a true service, the best of factual journalism. Not so much the editorial and opinion piece<read>

Our response was a letter to the editor of the Courant, addressing the editorial and opinion piece, withing the limits of the 200 words allowed by the Courant, now published online:

Vote Count Accuracy More Important Than Speed

I agree in part with the editorial “Where Were The Results?” [Nov. 9]. Our current system of local registrars is antiquated. We should do for elections what we have done for probate: regionalize, professionalize and economize. Yet, change should not include blind pursuit of speed over accuracy or risk tampering with elections.

Beyond tampering with results, connecting scanners or memory cards to the Internet risks that the scanners can be infected to compromise future elections. Recognized computer scientists and security experts agree. Based on UConn’s recommendations, the external ports on our voting machines are required to be sealed.

Contrary to the opinion piece by Brandon Finnigan, “Learning Who Won Takes Too Long” [Nov. 9, Opinion], some states are more organized and careful than Connecticut in reporting reasonably complete results. Los Angeles County is the nation’s largest election jurisdiction, managed by a professional election administrator, Dean Logan. California has about 50 percent its votes cast by mail. As the Los Angeles County website states, mail ballots received by Election Day and some others are counted over a 28-day period after election night.

Let’s regionalize. Let’s improve the system. And let’s lighten up on getting results, any results, without regard to their accuracy.

Luther Weeks, Glastonbury

The writer is executive director of CTVotersCount.org, an election issues advocacy site.
Copyright © 2014, Hartford Courant

What follows are some of my comments online on those articles and opinions, edited for grammar and completeness.

Two of the articles complained that results were too slow, including an “Expert” from Southern California who wrote the opinion piece. I said:

California counts absentee ballots for up to 28 days after the election. In 2008 Minnesota took at least a couple of months to determine the winner of the Frankin-Coleman race for the Senate. Connecticut would rush to complete our recanvass in eight days…

Connecticut accepts no absentee votes after 8:00pm on election night. In CA, where about half the vote is mail-in they continue counting them for days and weeks after the election. They are not required to be done for 28 days – I know that LA county, the largest jurisdiction in the U.S. goes quite a while. The only thing we count later (if we do) is the provisional ballots.

Connecticut is far from the slowest. Take Alaska’s election counting, please:

Alaska will begin counting more than 53,000 absentee and questioned ballots on Tuesday[Nov 11] in an effort to resolve the state’s unsettled contests for the Senate and for governor. Democratic Sen. Mark Begich trailed Republican challenger Dan Sullivan by about 8,100 votes after Election Night…The race for Alaska governor is actually closer than the Senate contest. Independent candidate Bill Walker, aided when the winner of the Democratic primary bowed out of the race to run as Walker’s lieutenant governor, led incumbent Republican Gov. Sean Parnell by about 3,000 votes.

So, Connecticut is “among the last in the nation to get election results”, yet days, maybe weeks ahead of Alaska, California, and Colorado:

It’s a week after Election Day and they’re still counting votes in Colorado, where some are blaming a new state law that replaced polling booths with mandatory mail-in ballots. Top-ticket races have been decided—Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper was re-elected and Republican Cory Gardner unseated Democratic Sen. Mark Udall—but the vote totals in a dozen state House and Senate races remain unknown

To the suggestion that we should connect our scanners to the Internet because Massachusettts has found no problems, I said:

Massachusetts has never had an election audit until this year. So there is no evidence of the reliability of their processes. In fact, half the states have no audit at all and there is very little to go on to know if there ever was or will be errors or fraud in those states. It could always be that paper ballots and audits actually deter fraud and reduce error. NY did find errors a couple of years ago in their audit, as we have in Connecticut. Respected computer scientists like Professor Shvartsman at Uconn agree there are risks, that is why he advised the state to seal the ports on our scanners. Finally, even though we counted all the ballots in Bridgeport in 2010, the system was never able to recognize the actual results there or to investigate the difference between voters signed in and the number of ballots there.

At CTNewsJunkie: Problems at the Polls Highlight Limitations of Locally Operated Election System <read>.

The main point was that the the new election night reporting system by the Secretary’s office will solve many of the problems – it may solve some, but certainly not all. I commented:

I hope the new reporting system works and is workable. The previous system prototyped twice required too much data entry by each moderator, many after a 17-24 hour day. An improved system will get the data earlier and more accurately, provided time is still taken to double check it in each town before entry and if the system allows the efficient entry of data by refreshed people and their entry is also double checked.

Anyone who pronounces such a system as ready for general use by moderator’s should be required to use it to enter central absentee results after a long long day.

There is much to improve in the whole system especially by regionalization. Yet, there is much that could be done in the name of speed and modernization that could make things worse rather than better.

Human nature being what it is, we tend to believe that any change we are in favor or against will or would have prevented this problem. e.g. see “911 Patriot Act”. Several commenters indicated that if we had kept lever machines or went to touch screens, we would not have all this problems counting absentee votes. I commented:

As an experienced central count absentee moderator I would like to point out a few things:
1) Our absentee procedures are no more complex than other states. Actually simpler than those that require that signatures be matched with those on file.
2) When we had lever machines, and if we changed polling place technology, we would still need paper absentee ballots.
3) The only difference with absentee ballots now is that we have scanners to help count them faster and more accurately. Much more quickly than by hand counting.
4) Absentee ballot counting can start at 10:00am, when 95+% are available. In a well organized operation, all there is to do at 8:00pm is to process a few that came in at the end of the day, print machine tapes, and complete paperwork. That should not take more than a couple of hours.
5) You can pretty well predict the number of absentee ballots based on those that are requested, so you can staff accordingly to get the job done.
Finally, there are good reasons we have voter verified paper ballots in polling places as well as for absentees- they provide a much more secure and auditable vote, over all its a much less costly technology, its less likely to cause long lines (check-in is a separate issue), and paper ballots can be used despite machine and power failures etc.

Ironically, some who complain about the results of the knee-jerk, partially helpful, Help America Vote Act, also propose knee-jerk action this time.

Bottom Line for now:

There were many problems highlighted by this election
There is a lot to fix, things that voters should not put up with
But like some hurricanes, we missed the big one – by Wed we knew who the winners were, a few voters and votes were lost, and the media had a field day complaining about their not getting results fast enough.
Deliberate action based on a bit of experience, facts, and research can lead to positive improvement. Lets do that, not forget the problems and not forget do the work.

Op-Ed: End Exemptions To Post-Election Audits

[I]t doesn’t make sense that the Connecticut’s post-election audit law exempts all votes on questions, election day registration, originally hand-counted ballots and absentee ballots from our post-election audit. Election integrity and public confidence demand that all ballots be subject to random selection for audit. Exempt ballots already determine many elections, while the number and percentage of exempt ballots is growing.

Op-Ed for Connecticut Citizen Election Audit published today at CTNewsJunkie

Op-Ed for Connecticut Citizen Election Audit published today at CTNewsJunkie: <read>

OP-ED | End Exemptions To Post-Election Audits

by Luther Weeks | Oct 15, 2014

When auditing town expense accounts, would it make sense to exempt some departments? When inspecting trucks, would it make sense to exempt school buses? When inspecting restaurants, would it make sense to exempt diners? Any exemption is an opening for errors to go undetected and an opportunity for fraud.

Equally it doesn’t make sense that the Connecticut’s post-election audit law exempts all votes on questions, election day registration, originally hand-counted ballots and absentee ballots from our post-election audit. Election integrity and public confidence demand that all ballots be subject to random selection for audit. Exempt ballots already determine many elections, while the number and percentage of exempt ballots is growing.

Currently about 9 percent of ballots are absentee ballots, many elections and primaries are decided by much lower margins than 9 percent. If the State enacts early voting, following other states those numbers will almost certainly rise to over 30 percent within a few years. Compare that to the race for governor in 2010, which was officially decided by about 0.6 percent—more than triple the 2000 vote margin necessary for a recanvass. Since Connecticut recently initiated Election Day registration, we can anticipate those votes to reach 10 percent of votes in a few years, which will further add to the totals exempt from the audit.

In 2010, the audit counted over 23,000 ballots from Bridgeport for the governor’s race. We found many counting and accounting errors, especially with emergency paper ballots that were counted by hand on election night. Less known is that a handful of other towns also had similar numbers of emergency hand-counted ballots in 2010. There are hand-counted ballots in every election – all of these are currently exempt from the post-election audits.

Officials in many states hand-count votes accurately in audits, using uniform, proven and effective counting methods. In Connecticut, many municipalities use ad hoc, inadequate methods to manually count ballots. Even under the ideal planned conditions of audits, many officials argue that they cannot count ballots accurately by hand and attribute almost all differences large and small, to their own errors. Many towns manually count large numbers of ballots at the end of a demanding seventeen-hour-plus election day, when there is no expectation, planning, staff, or training to count large numbers of ballots by hand on election night. How many voters are aware that many towns now avoid scanners and hand-count all votes in some primaries? Yet, we have no audit to assess how accurate these manual-counts are.

In November 2012 officials in one town investigated a difference and determined that polling place officials mistakenly read 151 ballots into a scanner a second time. Despite checks that could have caught the error before certification, the discrepancy was not detected until the audit. In another town, a similar error was made in the central count of absentee votes. It was discovered by citizens reviewing election records and resulted in reversing the official result on a highly charged question. How common are such errors? We will never know until we stop exempting absentee ballots and questions from the audit.

The good news is that we do not have to spend more to increase confidence in our elections. Connecticut is one of twenty states with hand-count audits. Our existing audit, at 10 percent of polling places, seems among the strongest. A small state needs to audit more to achieve the same confidence as a large state. This is because the statistical confidence of an audit, just like the confidence of a poll, is more dependent on the number of units counted than on the percent of the votes or voters in the election. We can reduce that 10 percent, even counting fewer total ballots, and gain confidence by subjecting all ballots to audit, while using efficient, proven counting methods.

Luther Weeks is executive director of the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit.

Editorial: Improve Turnout By Making Voting Worthwhile

It seems that turnout is the holy grail of elections. Many election reforms are justified on a claim, true or not, that the reform will increase turnout. But, turnout is more a symptom of democracy, than an end in itself.

We have some suggestions to consider:

Make it easier for third-party candidates to get on the ballot, easier to qualify for public financing. Let us start with a level playing field for public financing, and officials that follow the law, with a “Chief Election Official” with actual responsibility for elections.
Reform the decentralized partisan election system.
Eliminate the “Spoiler” effect, provide more democracy, with a true runoff election when one candidate does not get 50_% of the vote.

Let us recall that in this generation, two third-party “spoilers” did win elections in Connecticut: Governor Lowell Weicker, and Senator Joe Lieberman.

Background <go to Editorial>

In our last post we summarized the case for and against no-excuse absentee voting. Proponents claim that it will increase turnout. Yet, what we find as the best science says it tends to decrease turnout – the reasons are not obvious, not intuitive, and far from clear. Yet, either way the difference in turnout is just a very few points. It would be unlikely to take the 21% turnout we had in the recent primary and make it more than 25%.

What increases turnout? One factor could be voter interest in the election, that the election is important, and that their vote is important. We always have lower turnout in odd year municipal elections and higher turnout in general elections. We have had more than our fair share of exciting general elections in even years lately, Lamont vs. Lieberman 2006, Malloy vs. Foley 2010, McMahon vs. Blumenthal 2010, and McMahon vs. Murphy in 2012. Even when it is a slam dunk in Connecticut it seems that an election where voters want to register their enthusiasm for a candidate can bring voters out, e.g. Obama 2008.

Looking at the 2014 election, conventional wisdom is that it will be a close election rematch between Tom Foley and Dannel Malloy. Neither candidate is all that popular, both were expected to and are underway in very negative campaigns against each other. Columnist Kevin Rennie has characterized it as “A Race Between Two Dark Vaders”. A close race between unpopular candidates, both well financed with lots of “outsider” funding as well – many voters will be turned off, yet many may still turnout.

How could it get more exciting? Enter two petitioning third party candidates, stage right and stage left. Is this exciting or more depressing? For the two major party candidates and their supporters, depressing. For supporters of the third-party candidates and those depressed by the major party candidates, exciting.

How could it get more depressing to voters and potential candidates? First, by the major party candidates and their supporters adding to the negativity by bashing the minor party candidates, and the system that allows them to petition their way onto the ballot. The case for additional candidates, best summarized by Connecticut native Ralph Nader, himself bashed for the 2000 election and for signing a petition for one of the candidates, resulting in a Courant Op-Ed <read>

Nader: Crashers Needed At The Two-Party Party

Giving voters more choices in an election year should be as American as the Fourth of July

The word “spoiler,” when applied only to small-party candidates, is an epithet of political bigotry. It says to people who want to enter the electoral arena and talk about ignored but important issues that they should not do so.

It says the two big parties own all the voters, and they should not be taken away by third-party candidates who can’t win. Nor should these candidates be given an opportunity to build voter familiarity and an eventual chance at winning over several elections.

Many Americans, despite their disgust with the behavior of the two major parties, think nothing of telling people not to run because they’ll be “spoilers.” That is equivalent to telling candidates to shut up — a nasty demand that one would not readily use in daily interactions.

Even so, I was surprised that my mere signing of former state legislator Jonathan Pelto’s petition, along with thousands of other Connecticut voters, to get him on the gubernatorial ballot made news. After all, giving voters more choices and voices in an election year should be as American as apple pie and the Fourth of July. Except that it isn’t…

How could it get more depressing to voters and potential candidates? Second, by a system that looks like insider manipulation by local party operatives, with a system headed by a Secretary of the State powerless to enforce the law and free from full actual responsibility as the State’s “Chief Election Official”.

The only good news in this: There is enough remnants of our formerly world-leading Freedom Of Information law, a smart candidate, and apparently no questions asked cooperation from the Secretary of the State’s Office in providing transparency. (At least that is what we have experienced from the Merrill and Bysiewicz administrations, and have no reason to doubt here).

On Sunday, petitioning candidate Jon Pelto, on his blog described his efforts of see what was actually happening with his petitions, it is a long sad, interesting story. W applaud his initiative to find what is so: You call this a Democracy?<read> His blog post is well worth reading. We also applaud the Courant for an article in today’s edition covering the story and summarizing the issues, based on the information developed by Pelto, hopefully they have been, or will, be joined by other media in the State: Pelto Sweating Out Signature Count, Says He May Sue If Denied Ballot Access <read>

Merrill’s office has been allowing Pelto, under supervision, to examine hundreds of petitions that it already has logged in — and he said it’s now clear that “dozens” of signatures were wrongly rejected by local officials.

Pelto said some of the unjustified reasons given for those rejections included: the lack of a full birth date in a space on the petition form that isn’t mandatory; a woman including her married name after the maiden name under which she was registered, even though all other information matched local records; and petition signers being on a local list of “inactive” voters, after not voting for a couple of years…

As Pelto riffled through stacks of petition sheets Tuesday, he said that Merrill’s staff already had agreed with him that some of the local officials’ rejections are unjustified. But, he added, Merrill’s office cannot overrule the decisions of local officials, many of whom are party insiders. Merrill can only compile the local officials’ certified totals; if they add up to 7,500 or more, she puts the candidate on the ballot.
[Deputy Secretary of the State James] Spallone said it appears Pelto is correct in at least some of what he says. For example, Spallone said, a signature shouldn’t be rejected simply because a person is on the local “inactive” voter list. People on that list must be allowed to vote if they show up on Election Day and verify their identities, he said, adding that “simply being ‘inactive,’ on its own, is not enough to reject a signature.”

Editorial

This election demonstrates the worst of money in political campaigns with two sides with large stores of cash, along with only slightly “separate” groups assisting with even more cash. Much to the discredit of our once leading public financing system, struggling survival along with our FOI laws.

It also demonstrates the worst of our decentralized, dual partisan Registrars of Voters system of elections, with an almost powerless Secretary of the State. It is time to consider reforming the system by regionalization as we have suggested, and not make it worse as the Courant has been advocating.

And for turnout, that indicator and symptom of the value the electorate places on participation in elections. We have some suggestions to consider:

Make it easier for third-party candidates to get on the ballot, easier to qualify for public financing. Let us start with a level playing field for public financing, and officials that follow the law, with a “Chief Election Official” with actual responsibility for elections.
Reform the decentralized partisan election system.
Eliminate the “Spoiler” effect, provide more democracy, with a true runoff election when one candidate does not get 50_% of the vote.

Let us recall that in this generation, two third-party “spoilers” did win elections in Connecticut: Governor Lowell Weicker, and Senator Joe Lieberman.

Common Sense: [How] Do you know if your vote counted?

The Citizen Audit has just opened up our signup for the audits for the primary, which start fifteen days after the primary. The primary is August 12th, so the audits will begin Aug 27th.

Q: So, why bother signing to spend a day observing the audits?
A: To understand and the question ” [How] Do you know if your vote counted?”

Note: This is then tenth post in an occasional series on Common Sense Election Integrity, summarizing, updating, and expanding on many previous posts covering election integrity, focused on Connecticut. <next> <previous>

The Citizen Audit has just opened up our signup for the audits for the primary, which start fifteen days after the primary. The primary is August 12th, so the audits will begin Aug 27th.

Q: So, why bother signing to spend a day observing the audits?
A: To understand and the question ” [How] Do you know if your vote counted?”

The Citizen Audit’s new flag promotes the theme Vote, Audit, Observe. It summarizes three of the keys to approaching “knowing” if our votes are all counted and accounted for correctly. They highlight the importance of voting, auditing the vote, and independent observation of the audits. Given the requirement of the Secret Vote to prevent successful selling, buying, or intimidating votes it is impossible for any one person to determine if their individual vote was counted accurately, yet possible collectively for independent observers to determine if everyone’s vote was counted accurately – or at least to provide some assessment of how confident we are in the reported counts and winners.

From the Citizen Audit:

Voting is the foundation of democracy. Some say it is a per-Constitutional right, to choose our government, established by the Declaration of Independence. Today voting integrity is as important as ever, and perhaps we are even more aware and concerned with voting vulnerabilities.

Vote: Citizenship is of little value if we do not vote. Not voting assures that your vote won’t count. If you value democracy, vote! If you want change, vote! If you prefer stability, vote!

Audit Connecticut has paper ballots which provide evidence to verify election results and provide confidence. Paper ballots are of little value without sufficient recounts and audits. Connecticut is one of about half of the states with post-election audits.

Observe Checking ballots by officials is insufficient. Public confidence requires public verification – transparency and direct public observation and analysis. That’s where you can participate further in authentic Democracy!