CT Skulduggery and Errors | CTVotersCount.org

RoundUp: Registrar Error or Election Fraud? – Saving $$$ or Empowering Voters?

Our Editorial: One clear theme in Connecticut this year is saving money. That is certainly an important goal, but the value delivered for expenditures and the value lost in the name of savings should be recognized and considered. Should we stop inspecting highways, bridges, school buses, and buildings because it costs money? Or should we continue because it protects the value of our investment in infrastructure and saves lives? Should we save on election audits and voting? Or should we further empower voters and strengthen voting integrity because we value fair elections and a participatory democracy?

We are likely to have several busy news days over the next few weeks as the General Assembly considers changes to the election laws and the 2010 election heads towards the May party conventions.

Court Rules In Hartford Primary

One slate in Hartford recently accused a registrar of illegally certifying another slate. There is also a potential conflict of interest (probably legal) given that the registrar and two of her relatives are on the slate <earlier coverage> Now a court has ruled the slate should be removed from the ballot, yet because of an appeal the election will go forward with both slates on the ballot. <Courant Article>

“The court has made a finding that there are names on the ballot that do not belong there” [Plaintiffs’ Attorney] Sweeney said…But [Hartford Corporation Counsel] Rose argued that the case boiled down to “an error by the registrar” and said that the court did not have the authority to remove the names from the ballot. [Judge] Peck said she decided not to terminate the stay because if her ruling is eventually overturned, the election would have already been held.

Courant Proposes Cost Savings At The Expense Of Voters

Also today, the Courant has an editorial proposing centralized voting and no excuse absentee voting to save money in elections: Would ‘Vote Centers’ Work? <read> The article touts success in Indiana in saving money. The focus of the editorial is on saving money, but likely at the expense of voter convenience:

Voting centers, an alternative to precinct-based elections, are usually set up in strategic locations and save money because they require fewer workers and voting machines. Centralized electronic voting records are used to ensure security. In some places, centers open before Election Day for early voting. Ideally, vote centers will give local election officials the flexibility to anticipate election turnout and modify the number of locations and the level of staffing…

If the centers have to be open for weeks before the election with paid staff, that might eliminate the savings. If they were only open on Election Day, that might cause crowding that would discourage voting or make it difficult for workers to assist older or handicapped voters. The change in location could inconvenience voters who travel by public transportation…

Even with these caveats, the idea should receive a public airing. We are looking at a massive budget deficit. If regional election centers will save some money, they should be on the table. Perhaps the place to start is with a good idea Ms. Bysiewicz put forward last year, “no excuse” absentee ballots.

We note that these are not early voting centers that add to the convenience of voters, they are a few polling places replacing many at the expense of voter convenience, especially for those dependent on public transportation: From an article reporting the results in Indiana – the savings based on dramatically consolidating polling places: <read>

Vote centers allow ballots to be cast at any county voting location instead of at home precincts. The Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute reported recently the centers would save every county money. Tippecanoe, Cass and Wayne counties have been piloting the idea.

House Democrats aren’t buying the plan. House Elections Chairman Rep. Kreg Battles of Vincennes wants more study because of questions over electronic poll books, security and other matters.

A Porter County Commissioners task force study in 2009 found the cost savings to taxpayers could climb as high as $200,000 per year. The study showed the county’s poll worker numbers would drop from 640 to about 120.

Vote centers also would mean fewer voting machines would be needed. They cost about $4,000 each and need to be replaced every 10 years.

Vote centers would be an added convenience for citizens who would have the choice of voting near work, home or their child’s school. The bill should pass.

Depending on where they work, live, and their children go to school. Its hard to imagine that dramatically less polling places would leave many voters closer to the polls.

As we have stated many times we are opposed to the expansion of absentee voting for any purpose. It disenfranchises voters without their knowledge and risks voting integrity.

Our Testimony On A Flawed Bill

Yesterday we testified to the General Administration and Elections Committee on a bill for Election Day Registration in Connecticut. We support Election Day Registration and testified in favor of the original bill submitted last year. Over the course of the year that bill was changed to a form of absentee voting with little safeguards. This year that bill has been resurrected. I testified in favor of the concept and against the details in the bill. Once again the motivation is to provide an image of voter empowerment with a focus on saving money and the convenience of election officials: <H.B.5321> <Testimony>

I support the good intentions and concepts behind H.B.5321, yet I have serious concerns with the specific approaches in the current bill.

I am generally opposed to the expansion of absentee balloting for any purpose. Absentee ballots have security and integrity risks not associated with regular voting. Election day registration may represent over 10% of the votes in an election. Beyond risks to integrity, in every election absentee voters are disenfranchised without their knowledge in two ways:

First, they may make a simple mistake in following procedures and have their ballot rejected.

Second, voters do not have the opportunity to revote their ballot if by mistake they overvote.

It would serve the voters of Connecticut much better if Election Day Registration (or EDR) were available at each polling place as is the case in five (5) of the six (6) states with EDR as of 2006. Connecticut could follow the examples of Maine, New Hampshire, or Minnesota. We are piloting a less than adequate system, I presume because of concerns with cost and integrity. I recall testimony before the GAE demonstrating the integrity and effectiveness of polling place EDR in Maine.

I would also recommend that any pilot program include a requirement for independent objective analysis with reporting back to the Legislature, rather than relying only on feedback from election officials. When Secretary Bysiewicz chose new election equipment in 2006, she included an independent professional analysis involving citizen evaluation, along with focus groups of citizens and election officials. Without that study we might well have doubled our costs and be voting today on inadequate touch screen voting equipment.

There are several ways in which polling place EDR could be accomplished. Any EDR method will increase some election day costs, yet there would also be savings in other election day and pre-election day costs.

Major improvements to the bill would include:

Requiring voting booths, a ballot box tender, and ballot clerks in central EDR locations to provide the opportunity for a smooth, secure voting process, along with a clear opportunity for voters to correct errors on their ballot.

Allowing single polling place towns to provide EDR in the same building as the polling place, with voters voting by optical scanner as usual.

Requiring towns with central count absentee ballot locations to use an optical scanner for EDR ballots, rather than the using the “absentee ballot” like process.

In summary, the focus should be on enfranchising voters and encouraging participation, while maintaining voting integrity.

We note no testimony in public in favor of the bill’s absentee-like mechanisms for voting. Perhaps some was submitted on paper.

Our Editorial:

One clear theme in Connecticut this year is saving money. That is certainly an important goal, but the value delivered for expenditures and the value lost in the name of savings should be recognized and considered. Should we stop inspecting highways, bridges, school buses, and buildings because it costs money? Or should we continue because it protects the value of our investment in infrastructure and saves lives? Should we save on election audits and voting? Or should we further empower voters and strengthen voting integrity because we value fair elections and a participatory democracy?

Registrar of Voters suit: Alleged to have fudged petitions for herself and relatives

Hartford has three Registrars of Voters: Democratic, Republican, and Working Families Party. Apparently that is hardly enough when each registrar is responsible for their own party’s primary. There is a name for this in Hartford: Business as Usual.

Courant story: Town Committee Candidates File Suit Against Hartford Registrar Of Voters <read>

A group of candidates for the 5th district [Hartford] Democratic Town Committee has filed a lawsuit against Hartford’s Democratic registrar of voters, who also happens to be a member of the opposing slate of candidates.

The suit alleges that Olga Iris Vazquez accepted and submitted petition signatures for her slate that were not properly completed by circulators. The suit also alleges that when Vazquez realized that some of the petitions were not properly completed, she had a deputy registrar remove them from the city and town clerk’s office to be completed — after the deadline for submission had passed. The suit also names Garey Coleman, deputy registrar, and John Bazzano, city and town clerk.

The suit says that because some of the signatures are improper, the Vazquez slate had 268 valid signatures, rather than the 323 necessary to have the slate placed on the March 2 primary ballot. The suit alleges that Vazquez violated state statutes by accepting incomplete petitions and seeks to have them declared invalid. The suit also seeks to have Vazquez’s slate, which includes her husband, Radames Vazquez, and her mother-in-law, Juanita Giles, declared unqualified to run in the March town committee primary because of its failure to file the necessary number of signatures by the 4 p.m. Jan. 27 deadline.

Juanita Giles is the wife of Abraham Giles, a longtime city political operative and former state representative, who recently was associated with the altering of a census employment brochure to promote Vazquez’ town committee slate. A complaint was filed with the State Elections Enforcement Commission about the altered brochure, and it also was sent to the state’s attorney’s office.

There is a name for this in Hartford: Business as Usual. From the article:

Last month, a challenge slate in the 4th district also filed a complaint alleging that Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez and Chief of Police Daryl K. Roberts used their authority to deny members of one slate access to housing complexes in the city to gather signatures, while circulators from another slate were given access. Perez and Roberts denied any involvement…

Vazquez paid a $500 fine in 2004 when the state Elections Enforcement Commission determined that her office had accepted invalid petition signatures.

Also in the Courant today is a column by Helen Ubinas demonstrating the sad example of how Hartford City Hall celebrates Black History Month with sad examples of what passes for leadership, More Than A Few Dubious Honorees In Hartford’s Black History Month Exhibit <read>

honored among real Hartford heroes is the longtime Democratic ward boss who for years made or broke political aspirations with a house full of mysterious registered voters and who’s long lined his pockets with questionable parking lot deals. Just recently, he was arrested alongside Mayor Eddie Perez, who was charged with attempted extortion from a private developer for the benefit of his political pal Giles….

So, let’s just take the short tour.

That’s Veronica Airey-Wilson, the Republican councilwoman who was arrested for allegedly fabricating evidence to show that she had paid for work done on her home by the same city contractor from whom Perez is accused of getting discounted home repairs.

Those two guys over there are Russell Williams, one-time head of the Greater Hartford branch of the NAACP, and former Urban League of Greater Hartford CEO James Willingham. Both men cashed in big after supporting the company that was awarded the city schools’ multimillion-dollar construction project.

Makes you think they should change the name of the exhibit from “Honoring our Own” to “Getting Yours,” doesn’t it?

And that honking portrait is of Prenzina Holloway, who four years ago was fined $10,000 by state election officials for absentee ballot fraud. She paid a fraction of that fine after crying poor, then turned around and bought a used $31,727 Hummer she didn’t pay taxes on, despite drawing a city paycheck in the — wait for it — registrars of voters office.

But then, those details are bound to be overlooked when your daughter is the city council’s Democratic majority leader who is also the program’s one-woman nominating committee.

That is, until a couple of years ago, when rJo Winch expanded the committee to include herself, her mother and her sister-in-law.

CTVotersCount readers may recall that Hartford has three Registrars of Voters: Democratic, Republican, and Working Families Party. Apparently that is hardly enough when each registrar is responsible for their own party’s primary.

New Registrar and Two Databases add to campaign dustup

Fred DeCaro III, the Republican registrar of voters, said two separate databases have been used by the town over the years to record votes and one wasn’t checked when his office received its first inquiry on McMahon in September.

CTPost Article: All eyes on McMahon’s voting record in Greenwich <read>

Linda McMahon’s campaign says it has new evidence debunking a claim by chief GOP Senate rival Rob Simmons that she has only showed up to vote in two elections in her hometown of Greenwich.

The campaign furnished Greenwich Time Monday with a letter from the assistant Republican registrar of voters vouching that McMahon voted in the November elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2009…

“Rob Simmons allowed his campaign to peddle false and misleading attacks against Linda even after they knew their claims were false,” said Ed Patru, a spokesman for McMahon. “That’s a commentary on his character, it undermines a core line of attack he’s been using against Linda, and it damages his credibility.”…

A Sept. 23 letter from the same deputy registrar, Ruby Durant, was the basis for the campaign’s earlier claims that McMahon had only voted in the 2002 and 2008 general elections, according to Shah…

Fred DeCaro III, the Republican registrar of voters, said two separate databases have been used by the town over the years to record votes and one wasn’t checked when his office received its first inquiry on McMahon in September.

“I’m confident that at the very least she voted the number of times in (the Dec. 22) letter,” said DeCaro, who has only been in office for a year. “Obviously, it’s important, and we want to make sure we have the right information.”

We note with interest the overlap of the dates that the original list was 2002 and 2008 while the second list was 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008, and 2009. We would normally expect the shorter list to have come from one database of the two and that it would have included only the earliest or the latest dates. Could they have alternated databases rather than replacing one with the other?

Courant: Ballot Access Should Require Two People Of Opposing Parties

“The process was corrupted. When you go by yourselves, just you two, it gives the appearance of impropriety.”

We believe that ballots cannot be trusted unless there is a strong chain of custody, one critical part of that is that all access should be by at least two people and of opposing parties, and opposing interests in primaries. The Courant is right on in their editorial covering the Haddam situation <read>

when town offices were closed for Veterans Day, head election moderator Marge DeBold, a Democrat, found a clerical error in the absentee vote count that added an additional vote to Ms. Houlton’s total. That extra vote would throw the results into a tie, which would require a runoff election. The following day, Democratic Registrar Pat Hess authorized Ms. DeBold and Town Clerk Ann Huffstetler, also a Democrat, to open the sealed envelopes containing the ballots to review the tally sheets and amend the recount.

But there were no Republicans present. That was wrong…

Mr. Harris, the initial winner of the recount, summed it up well: “The process was corrupted. When you go by yourselves, just you two, it gives the appearance of impropriety.”

The Courant’s earlier coverage and our comments <read> Coaliton reports documenting breaches in the chain of custody <read> The issue goes beyond a documented instance of two people from the same party accessing the ballots. The issue includes the risks of single individuals having access to a single key needed to access the ballots – leaving them vulnerable to unauthorized access.

Chain-Of-Custody Education In Haddam

A tight Board of Education race in Haddam provides an example four understanding chain-of-custody and recounts vs. recanvasses.
* The chain-of-custody is important and its enforcement is important
* Every vote is important, counting every vote accurately, transparently, and credibly is critical to democracy
* Recounts and recount laws are important

A tight Board of Education race in Haddam provides an example four understanding chain-of-custody and recounts vs. recanvasses. Courant story: Dispute Over Recount In Haddam Board Of Education Race <read>

Republicans said they plan to call the secretary of the state’s office today to ask officials to investigate confusion about the vote for a seat on the board of eduction. Democrats, who say there is no confusion, called a meeting Tuesday evening to sort out the issue. A dozen Democrats and Republicans met, but left without reaching a consensus.

Democrats say the following occurred:

The unofficial vote count after the Nov. 3 election showed Republican Chester Harris beating Democratic incumbent Sabrina Houlton by one vote. Because of the slim margin, the town held a recount Nov. 10, which showed the same result.

The next day, when town offices were closed for Veterans Day, election head moderator Marge DeBold, a former Democratic first selectman, was reviewing the election information and found a clerical error. She noticed that next to Houlton’s name on the absentee vote count were four tally marks and the number “3.” DeBold said she realized that someone had miscounted the marks as three instead of four.

The next day, DeBold told Democratic Registrar Pat Hess what she had found. Hess authorized DeBold and Town Clerk Ann Huffstetler, also a Democrat, to open the sealed envelopes containing the ballots to review the tally sheets and to amend the recount.

Hess said Tuesday that she knew representatives from both parties needed to be present during all vote-counting procedures, but the GOP registrar could not attend that morning and they wanted to get the new tallies quickly to file the proper paperwork with the secretary of the state’s office. She said there was no intentional wrongdoing.

The additional vote for Houlton meant the race was a tie. State law mandates that the town must hold a runoff election between tied candidates. The election will be Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday, GOP Town Chairman Kenneth Gronbach alleged that the three Democrats — DeBold, Hess and Huffstetler — had tampered with votes.

“This isn’t Afghanistan. This is the United States of America,” Gronbach said. “It’s a conspiracy. The vote was changed; sealed documents were opened and altered.”

By Tuesday evening, he said he wasn’t accusing anyone of fraud, but would file a complaint with the State Elections Enforcement Commission and would file an injunction to prevent Tuesday’s election. He said that the last legal step in the process was the initial recount, and that its result is the one that should count.

Houlton argued that the mistake needed to be fixed, adding, “If that’s what the voters really want, then the runoff will speak to that.”

Harris said the issue “is that the process was corrupted. When you go by yourselves, just you two, it gives the appearance of impropriety.”

We also viewed a news report on WFSB-TV last night covering a meeting of Haddam officials and the actual hashmark sheet involved.

What can we learn from this?

The chain-of-custody is important and its enforcement is important
Every vote is important, counting every vote accurately, transparently, and credibly is critical to democracy
Recounts and recount laws are important

The chain-of-custody is important and its enforcement is important

The credibility of the election process is dependent on a strong chain-of-custody to protect the ballots and associated election materials so that recanvasses, recounts, and post-election audits will be accurate and trusted. In Haddam we have a classic situation where the evidence of the election has been called into question. There are two additional problems here. First, even if there was no tampering with votes or hashmark sheets candidates and the public cannot trust the process, lose faith in their government, and have to settle for a new election.

A new election is a fine solution for an actual election tie, and would be a necessary remedy for a compromised election. But it is not as good for a compromised election as performing the original election as intended. A new election is costly to candidates and taxpayers. Also it brings out a different group of voters and may or may not produce the same result as ab original election with integrity would have.

Unfortunately, in Connecticut, election laws, regulations, procedures and common sense are often not followed. The Coaltion Post-Election Audit Reports have documented many lapses in procedures, including the chain-of-custody. It is quite possible that in this case there was a violation of state law subject to enforcement, as the registrar points out “Hess said Tuesday that she knew representatives from both parties needed to be present during all vote-counting procedures”. In our experience most violations of the chain-of-custody are not discovered, not enforced, and not enforceable. Part of the problem is that, in Connecticut, only laws are enforceable, leaving regulations and procedures unenforceable – our ballots are only protected by law for fouteen days after the election, such that violations of procedures and common sense observed during the post-election audits are not enforceable.

The actual problem goes much deeper than this incident and the law. Common sense would imply that access to ballots should require at a minimum: access by two individuals with opposing interests, logging of all access, and systems to assure that violations of such access were prevented. In many states counties run elections and hold ballots in vaults, covered by 24×7 survelence and guards etc. In Connecticut, in most towns (according to Coalition surveys) either registrar has access to a key to ballot storage; in many towns any employee in the registrars’ office has such access; in others additional town employees including school janitors. The seals used for ballots in Connecticut can be compromised in a matter of minutes or seconds – they are useful but do not protect the ballots sufficiently when they can be accessed by individuals for extended periods.

Two years ago, I asked a security expert if I was being too hard in expecting Connecticut to follow stronger chain-of-custody procedures. He pointed out that officials should not want such open access as it would open them to potential questions of tampering – that they would be unable to refute. Case in point Haddam, even though many will trust the word of the officials, there will always be a lingering doubt.

Every vote is important, counting every vote accurately, transparently, and credibly is critical to democracy.

Time to reiterate the importance of every vote, the accuracy of every registration, the work to make sure every voter has a full opportunity within the law to vote, counting every absentee vote, every qualified provisional ballot, military and overseas ballot.

Also making sure that every effort is expended to properly reject ballots and unqualified voters and votes. To take reasonable steps to prevent fraud, such as avoiding internet voting, and penalizing fraud.

To voters: Make sure you vote. Carefully consider the risks of absentee voting or mail-in voting before you subject your vote to the added risk of fraud or error in such votes.

Recounts and recount laws are important.

I did not attend and can find no specific news reports of the Haddam ‘recount’, but unless it was unusual it likely conformed to the Connecticut close vote ‘recanvass’ law and procedures. As we have pointed out in the past there is a huge difference between a recount as conducted in some other states and the ‘recanvass’ conducted in Connecticut. <Our Comparison w/Minnesota>

Recanvasses may sufice to uncover significant transcription and arithmetic errors and a poorly tuned scanner. But when it comes down to one or two ballots in a district or perhaps a handfull in a town recanvass procedures may not be accurate enough. Here we have a one or zero ballot margin. In the Haddam race, just like a recent recanvass we attended that was judged a tie, one ballot can make a difference. One hashmark made under the wrong candidate. One vote misspoken or misunderstood. One apparent undervote that was actually a vote for a candidate. One ballot with identifying markings, but missed – such ballots should not be counted in Connecticut. One overvote not detected when counting ballots in multi-vote races. Every part of the process should be verified by two people to avoid simple errors like an incorrect count of hasmarks, transcription, or addition errors. The only reliable way we know is for mutiple officials to check every ballot on both sides, with candididate representatives watching; multiple officials checking every aspect including tallying. It is not a matter of official integrity or misconduct, it is to count with a level of precision equal to the closeness of the election.

Retail Fraud – A Stitch In Time Could Save Democracy

So, in Hartford, it seems that nothing is wrong with a little tax evasion a “lot of people” do it. It seems that voting fraud is regarded as almost in that same category except we don’t really know if a “lot of people” and officials do it or not. Maybe it is treated casually elsewhere in Connecticut and around the country. This is one of the two reasonse we are against expanded mail-in voting which includes no-excuse absentee voting – at a minimum it will mean more retail fraud and more voters unknowingly disenfranchised.

Update: Looks like the changes will be difficult to confirm and maybe there is nothing behind them <read>

***********

There is no agreement on the demarcation between retail vote fraud and wholesale vote fraud. In general retail fraud represents fraud that involves individual voters and individual votes, while wholesale fraud would represent fraud an a large scale by insiders or hackers. Everyone would agree that forging a handful of ballots would be retail fraud and that misprogramming voting machines would be wholesale fraud. The middle ground comes when in a statewide election an official in a single town substitutes or votes a few dozen ballots, or in a Presidential election one hacker changes the results on a single polling place machine.

Sometimes the existence of retail fraud is denied, ignored, or almost dismissed. We tend to think it dosen’t happen, accept it as part of the system, or believe that it does not matter. Two stories in Connecticut this week seem to conform to these views:

New Haven Register: Alderman alleges voter fraud <read>

In a complaint filed this week with the state Elections Enforcement Commission, Alderman Greg Morehead, D-22 accuses write-in opponent Lisa Hopkins of applying for and filling out absentee ballots against the wishes of voters, allegations Hopkins says are not true.

Hopkins lost to Morehead by eight votes in a hotly contested Democratic primary in September. She returned in the general election as a write-in candidate, securing 194 votes to Morehead’s 237. More than half of Hopkins’ votes, 107, came from absentee ballots. Morehead received 24 absentee ballot votes, records show.

In his complaint, Morehead alleges Hopkins told an elderly voter to hand Hopkins a signed absentee ballot before selecting a candidate. Morehead claims Hopkins told the voter she would complete the form.

In a close race with a margin of eight votes two alleged cases of fraud. If true, that could cut the margin to four. And this would be just the fraud discovered by this one candidate – if true, what are the odds there was more fraud?

To vote by absentee ballot, voters must show they are unable to make it to the polls on Election Day. “We don’t have ‘no excuse’ absentee ballot voting,” said Av Harris, spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of the State.

To be eligible, voters must show they will be out of state on Election Day, have an illness or physical disability that prevents them from getting to a polling place, or have a religious reason why they cannot vote on Election Day.

Voters must swear in an affidavit that they personally filled out the ballot. There may be rare circumstances in which a voter’s disability requires that someone fill out their ballot for them, but “it has to be a pretty compelling reason,” Harris said.

Absentee ballot fraud is not common, he said.

We agree that you need to have an excuse or lie to vote absentee ballot in Connecticut. We are not so sure that absentee ballot fraud is uncommon – maybe, maybe not – here is a recent story on three instances of absentee very retail voting fraud <read> And another from a while back <read page 1>

Here is another story this week showing how little we regard the seriousness of absentee ballot fraud. The Hartford Courant: Tax Troubles At City Hall <read>

Four years ago, Hartford Democratic operative Prenzina Holloway was fined $10,000 for absentee ballot fraud. But state officials allowed her to pay only $2,000 of the fine because she demonstrated financial hardship.

Yet a year and a half later, the apparently financially strapped Ms. Holloway bought a used Hummer for $31,727, state motor vehicle records show. According to city records, she never paid city taxes on the Hummer. She owes Hartford $3,500.

But she did draw a city paycheck recently for a one-week stint in the registrar of voters’ office — a temporary job she shouldn’t have been given because of her unsavory ballot-fraud past.

And the delinquent taxes? That seems to present no problem to Ms. Holloway’s daughter, rJo Winch, who just happens to be Democratic majority leader of the Hartford city council. “A lot of people in city hall owe the city money,” sniffed Ms. Winch.

How To NOT Instill Confidence In Election Integrity

one of the voting machines had broken down Tuesday evening, forcing poll workers to switch to a separate machine to count the remaining ballots. Some of the ballots had been photocopied because election officials believed they had run out of the official ballots. It was later revealed that officials had more than 1,000 unused ballots locked in the registrar of voters’ office.

Waterbury Republican: Ex-first selectman has lawyer probe Middlebury voting <read>

MIDDLEBURY — Former First Selectman Edward B. St. John has hired an attorney to investigate ballot irregularities in the Nov. 3 election.

Dennis M. Buckley, a Waterbury-based attorney, is reviewing documents filed by poll workers and election officials for St. John.

St. John, who ran as a write-in candidate, raised concerns immediately following the election after he learned one of the voting machines had broken down Tuesday evening, forcing poll workers to switch to a separate machine to count the remaining ballots. Some of the ballots had been photocopied because election officials believed they had run out of the official ballots. It was later revealed that officials had more than 1,000 unused ballots locked in the registrar of voters’ office.

“He wants to know what they should have done and what they did do,” Buckley said Wednesday. “Obviously, the only thing Mr. St. John has been able to do up until this point is listen to hearsay.”

Buckley said he plans to contact the Secretary of the State’s Office about the photocopied ballots, which were single-sided and did not have instructions on how to fill in the ballots for write-in candidates, something St. John has said could have hurt his candidacy.

Hartford Advocate: A New Day? [For Elections Enforcement]

Views of elections enforcement from Representative Chris Caruso and SEEC Director Al Lenge.

Hartford Advocate article on State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) and criticism of its history of enforcement: A New Day? Critics hope a new head of the state’s Elections Enforcement Commission will be tougher on corrupt politicians <read>

Jeffrey B. Garfield just retired as head of Connecticut’s Elections Enforcement Commission, ending more than 30 years as the official watchdog of our campaign laws.

In theory, Garfield was an ever-vigilant guardian ready to rip the entrails out of any scum-sucking politician who violated our sacred election system.

In reality, Garfield and the EEC more often played the role of flaccid, placid lapdog than ass-chewing election Rottweiler, particularly when it came to incumbent state elected officials.

Garfield’s departure has triggered gushing praise for his long service as well as questions about how effective his enforcement efforts were in the past and whether recent reforms will be able to prevent abuses in the future…

Garfield’s replacement, Albert P. Lenge, insists recent reforms have already made the EEC a tougher, more effective agency. “It’s a brand new day,” Lenge said this week. Let’s hope so…

The EEC seemed more eager to go after challengers and municipal officials than to take on the people who controlled the commission’s budget. The commission almost never launched an investigation on its own, preferring to wait for formal complaints. Garfield said the commission didn’t have the resources to go out looking for violators.

Proof of how weak the enforcement was came in an eruption of federally prosecuted corruption cases that included convictions of ex-Gov. John G. Rowland, Silvester, ex-Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim and ex-state Sen. Ernest Newton III. Those scandals finally led in 2005 to passage of public campaign financing and reforms intended to insulate the commission’s enforcement arm from political pressure.

“Had they [Garfield and the EEC] been stronger, had the whistle been blown sooner, you probably wouldn’t have seen the level of corruption that came about,” said state Rep. Chris Caruso, a Bridgeport Democrat who formerly served as co-chairman of the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee…

Lenge, who served as the commission’s deputy director and general counsel since 1995, doesn’t agree with many criticisms of the EEC’s past performance and also argues recent reforms have made the agency even stronger…

“Those were strong enforcement actions,” said Lenge. Caruso thinks the penalties should have been much heavier.

“There’s been a tradition within the EEC to level fines of a few thousand dollars on sitting state officials,” said Caruso. “In public opinion, really those are slaps on the wrist.”

Lenge says the emphasis on bigger fines ignores the effect an EEC reprimand can have on an incumbent’s reelection. “Just a finding [of wrongdoing] or a reprimand sometimes sends a strong message,” Lenge said.

He also disputes there was ever an EEC tactic of going after easy targets like local or challenge candidates.

Lenge said creation of an enforcement unit that is insulated from the director and the rest of the EEC staff has made the agency more independent and more likely to take on powerful incumbents. He also argues the commission has lots more resources now, with a staff that’s grown from seven in 1995 to 52 today. The EEC is now auditing every single 2008 legislative campaign and will initiate investigations if need be.

In the past we have criticized the speed of the SEEC and the Legislature because election regulations and procedures are not enforceable by the SEEC, leaving little room for holding election officials to account for lapses in the conduct of elections and audits.

Low Tech, Computer Hack

Just a little reminder that we can have all the physical security, encryption, open source, and source disclosure in the world. Yet, there are still low tech ways to hack systems available to high school “D students”.

Update: Nationwide: Computers Increase Students’ Temptation To Cheat

Two Manchester High School students breached the school district’s computer system and altered grades and attendance records, police said Tuesday.

The incident remains under investigation.

Police said the students learned the user name and password to the system from watching a school administrator log in.

They changed grades and attendance records multiple times over the past two weeks, police said. One of the students changed a grade from a D to a C, police said. Another student discovered what they were doing and told a school official about it.

Update: 10/30/2009 Courant: Nationwide: Computers Increase Students’ Temptation To Cheat <read>

More evidenced that it does not take researcg at Princeton or UConn to cheat with computers. Are registrars any more savvy than school administrators in preventing and detecting fraud?

Much of it is using computers for cheating, but some is hacking:

There’s nothing new about cheating, said Lt. James Wardwell, a computer forensics expert with the New Britain Police Department, “and the computer is just another tool to help someone accomplish a bad deed.”

What is new is that cheating in America’s high schools has become “rampant, and it’s getting worse,” according to a 2008 nationwide survey by the Josephson Institute, the California-based nonprofit organization that runs the Character Counts! youth ethics program in schools in Connecticut and throughout the country.

The survey of 30,000 high school students found that 64 percent said they had cheated on a test during the past year, up from 60 percent in 2006. The survey did not address school computer hacking, but 36 percent of respondents said they had used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, an increase from 33 percent in 2006.

Some students have been lured into cyber-cheating by the apparent cloak that computers and personal communication devices provide, Michael Josephson, president of the ethics institute, said. Armed with stolen information, kids can enter school record systems from their bedrooms, or they can photograph copies of tests with their cellphones and send them to others who have to take the same test…

Newspaper reports from throughout the country show that the methods students use to crack school computer programs range from simply watching a school staff member entering a password — the method used in Manchester, according to police — to sneaking spyware onto school computers. “Key-logger” programs, for instance, record all strokes on a computer keyboard and send a record to another computer.

In some cases, cyber-cheating students have lifted user names and passwords from hard copy lists left in school offices. Some school staff members use their own names, or slightly altered variations, as passwords, enabling a student to enter a grading or attendance site after a few guesses.

That was the case in Naples, Fla., recently, where police say a 16-year-old boy slipped into school district computers by guessing an employee’s password. The boy was then able to change the grades of five or six students, according to Florida news reports.

Nationwide: Computers Increase Students’ Temptation To Cheat

The Day: New London has problem with math

Actually it is more a problem of complexity and communications

New London has problem with math <read> Actually it is more a problem of complexity and communications:

The decision to consolidate seven districts into three was made late last spring as a cost-cutting move. Like every other city and town in the state, money is tight and New London is looking to trim wherever it can find savings.

The state’s statutory requirement for municipal polling places is that there be at least one for each House district. And since New London is split between the 39th and 40th districts, the city’s minimum is two, but in consolidating, it opted for three for convenience.

The savings amount to about $12,000 for each election, including costs for setting up ballots, programming voting machines, adding telephone lines, and paying poll workers. Rather than the usual 16 machines in operation in New London on Election Day, now there will be eight. And the typical contingent of about 60 poll workers will be halved to 3…

The only two districts that are physically moving are the 3rd and 4th, which previously voted at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School. The problem is, they’re moving to different places. The old 3rd is going to the new 1st, which casts ballots at New London High School. (In the past, the high school was the place to vote for the old 1st, 2nd, and 3rd districts.) And the 4th is going to the new 2nd, which used to be home to the 4th, 5th and 7th districts. So if used to vote at Bennie Dover, you need to figure out where you’re going on Nov. 3rd…

The registrar’s map delineating the new districts is virtually impossible to read, and the problem is compounded because in some neighborhoods, the odd-numbered side of a street votes in one district while the even-numbered households vote in another.