Three Issues After Monroe, CT 2006 Audits

Previously I covered my concerns with audit differences in the audit of the 2006 election. Today I will cover my observation of the Monroe, CT audit.

On November 27, 2006 I was able to witness the audit that was taking place in Monroe, CT. Monroe has four voting precincts and two of them were selected for full hand recounts.

There were three issues associated with the audits and several problems with the election process.

Read the details:

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Campaign of GAE’s Co-Chair Charges Election Procedure Violations

Representative Christopher Caruso is Co-Chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee (GAE) which writes Connecticut election law including the current Audit Law PA 07-194. He has entered the primary for Mayor of Bridgeport. I have been appreciative of Representative Caruso’s efforts in support of the campaign finance law and voter verified paper ballots. However, as readers of this site are aware, I am critical of the inadequacy of PA 07-194 written primarily by the Secretary of the State’s Office and the leadership of the GAE.

The Representative’s campaign clearly agrees that procedures are regularly violated in Connecticut.

Citing a history of poorly-run elections conducted under the shadow of taint, and a range of current violations of Connecticut Election Law by the Democratic Registrar of Voters Santa Ayala, Bridgeport Mayoral candidate Chris Caruso’s campaign manager wrote to Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz today asking her to monitor Tuesday’s election and to consider intervening…

“I hope that you will direct your staff to keenly monitor the conduct of this important election to help guarantee that the process is fair, and that you will even consider taking a more active role in the conduct of the primary in Bridgeport,” wrote Grossman.

John Kantrowitz highlighted this on MyLeftNutmeg as part of the coverage of their mayoral debate.

Voting Vendor and Yale Professor – Suggest Changes To Election Procedures

Dori Smith aired the second segment of a four part series on voting integrity, yesterday at 5:00 PM on WHUS. Once again, I highly recommend listening to the audio and reading the transcript while also marking your calendar for next week. Also review segment one.

This segment has further interviews with John Silvestro, President of LHS, our voting machine vendor and Professor Michael Fisher of Yale University and President of TrueVoteCT.

Mr. Silvestro suggests that the problem of ignored or violated procedures, like the one in the 2nd District in November, 2006, can be handled by auditing fully the machines involved:

Then automatically in my mind that precinct should come into the post election audit OK? And that you know although you are going to select 10% that one precinct may end up being, and it should, end up being one of the automatic entries into that 10% post election audit. And that’s the beauty of post election audits is that you can take situations that arise on election day and say OK. We want to do 10% of 793 with whatever that comes to, 79 or let’s call it 80 precincts. But we had problems in precinct you know A, B, C and D or E and F and whatever. Eight precincts? Those eight are already included and the other 72 are going to be randomly withdrawn. And that’s how I believe you would do this. – John Silvestro

I agree that Mr. Silvestro has a basically good idea, yet I also have three concerns:

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FAQ: Should We Vote All Paper?

Many voting advocates take a strong position that we should vote only on paper and then count the paper. Registrars and long term election officials resist the paper.

Many voting advocates take a strong position that we should vote only on paper and then count the paper.

Registrars and long term election officials resist the paper.

Continue reading “FAQ: Should We Vote All Paper?”

A Timely Reminder – Closing In On 2008

From Steven Levy in Newsweek: <read>

But we’re electing a new president next year, and it’s so late in the game that the only measures to stop another mistrusted election are stopgaps. California’s secretary of State recognizes that. Plenty of citizens get it, too. Why aren’t more elected officials standing up for our elections?

Federal Election Assistance Commission Rigged Election Report – Sen Dodd, Please Investigate

A Washington Post articles describes a report watered down by the Election Assistance Commission.  You will need a free password and Id to view the article.

Because my approach to election issues tends to be more closely aligned with Democrats, I was paired with a Republican co-author. To further remove any taint of partisanship, my co-author and I convened a bipartisan working group to help us. We spent a year doing research and consulting with leaders in the field to produce a draft report. What happened next seems inexplicable. After submitting the draft in July 2006, we were barred by the commission’s staff from having anything more to do with it…

Yet, after sitting on the draft for six months, the EAC publicly released a report — citing it as based on work by me and my co-author — that completely stood our own work on its head. (emboldening added)

As you may or may not know, Senator Dodd sits as Ranking Member on the Committee that created the Help America Vote Act and the Election Assistance Commission. Perhaps it would be a good time to drop Senator Dodd a note and ask for oversight and an investigation.

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Recommended Listening and Reading – Talk Nation Radio

Dori Smith aired the first of a four part series on voting integrity yesterday at 5:00 PM on WHUS. I highly recommend listening to the audio and reading the transcript while also marking your calendar for next week.

This segment really brings home the dangers and implications of the incident last fall when LHS violated election protocols. Although I was familiar with the incident from Dori’s earlier reporting, this broadcast really demonstrates the risks strongly and clearly.

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Were 2006 Election Audits “Good News”?

If the auditors were employed by or under the control of the SOS[Secretary of the state], such factors might include the perception that “good news” should be the primary object in the audit report. (emboldening added)
– Candice Hoke, Testimony to U.S. House, March 20, 2007

We have very good news to report today, because it is now clear that the optical scan machines performed very well on Election Day and without any problems. Any changes in vote totals found in these audits were due to ballots being marked incorrectly by the voter, not to any problems with the optical scan machines. (emboldening added)
-Secretary of the State, Susan Bysicwicz, Press Release, Dec 7, 2006

Consider the results of the audits conducted after the November 2006 Connecticut election:

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Wed 8/29 5:00 PM – Dori Smith Interview with LHS President – Don’t Miss It

Dori Smith, Producer of TalkNationRadion will air an interview with LHS President John Silvestro, Wednesday August 29th, at 5:00pm on the air and online at WUHS. She has also provided a preview and extensive background.

LHS is the distributor of Diebold Premier election equipment and services to Connecticut. Once again, hats off to Dori for great reporting and great service to the voters of Connecticut.

There is a lot to absorb in the preview, I will be reading it and listening in tomorrow. Let me provide a couple of teasers:

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Record Journal: New voting machines could be vulnerable

Differing levels of trust in the technology are apparent in statements from TrueVoteCT, the Secretary of The State’s Office, and a Uconn Scientist:

“How do we know the card was programmed correctly in the first place?” [Dr. Michael Fischer, computer science professor at Yale University and president of True Vote Connecticut] asked. “Up until that point (when the cards reach Connecticut), they’re vulnerable, beginning with LHS Associates and all the hands they pass through at the company to the shipping clerk. It’s real convenient to say that once the cards have reached Connecticut they can’t be changed. Any time you have a private company that has the power to control the outcome of an election, it’s a big threat. The only way I would trust the memory cards would be if there was a publicly available way to verify the cards afterward.”
Michael Kozik, managing attorney of the Elections Division of the Secretary of the State’s office, said this isn’t a large concern.
LHS performs the same service for five New England states and has been in business 20 years, Kozik said. “It’s their livelihood,” he said. “In terms of security after it leaves their facility, it is shipped to the registrar in tamper-evident packaging. If something has been done to the card, it will be obvious once it has reached the town.”
Dr. Alec Schvartsman, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Connecticut and head of the university’s voting technology research center, which is working closely with the Secretary of the State to safeguard elections, agrees with Fisher that there is a possible vulnerability at LHS.“
That’s a valid concern, and the issue of how well we trust the people who program the memory cards for the election is important, be they a state employee or not,” he said. “The concerns are very valid and very real.”

I recommend reading the full Record Journal story click here.

Review some CTVotersCount recent posts on LHS and Diebold here and here.