CTVotersCount.org

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 3 – New Voting Machines

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

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

Why New Voting Machines

The simple answer is for two reasons..

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

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

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

Why New Voting Machines

The simple answer is for two reasons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We will address timing later in this post.

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

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

How to Update Voting Machines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When to Implement New Machines

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

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

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

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

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

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 2 – Implementing Change

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

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

Implementing Change

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

In addition to that:

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

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

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

Implementing Change

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

In addition to that:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lessons We Hopefully Will Follow

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

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

Early Voting in Connecticut – Part 1 – Expectations

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

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

Voters

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

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

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

Voters

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Government Groups

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

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

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

Election Officials

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

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

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

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

Election Integrity Advocates

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

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

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

Random Drawing of Districts for November 2022 Post-election Audit

On Thursday Secretary of the State Mark Kohler led the drawing of districts for audit.

Here is a list of the selected districts <press release>

Hand counting alone not the solution to election integrity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new twist: Fraud allegations added in Stamford

Earlier this week in Federal Court a former Stamford Democratic Chair was found guilty of absentee voting fraud: Former Stamford Democratic Chief Found Guilty of 28 Felonies in Ballot Fraud Case

For those not familiar with the case, suspicions started with a single voter attempting to vote in-person being told that he has already voted absentee, followed by a State Elections Enforcement Investigation leading to a referral to Federal investigators. The Dem Chair was indicted, while a former Republican Town Clerk turned state’s evidence and was not indicted.

But there was one surprising development in the trial:

Among the documents was a complaint sent to the FBI by a city official alleging improprieties in the town clerk’s office during the 2017 municipal election. Because of that, Randolph said he was obligated to inform the witnesses that they had the right not to testify because anything they said could be used against them by the FBI in its investigation.

Seeger said he’d planned to call Loglisci and two clerks that worked under her, Diane Pesiri and Maria Stabile, in his final chance to question them near the end of the trial. But Pesiri and Stabile declined to testify, as did Willy Giraldo, who also received ballots from Loglisci. After that, Seeger did not try to bring Loglisci or other witnesses to the stand.

Now there is more information: Stamford Clerk Warns FBI of Possible Ballot Fraud in Second Election

Earlier this week in Federal Court a former Stamford Democratic Chair was found guilty of absentee voting fraud: Former Stamford Democratic Chief Found Guilty of 28 Felonies in Ballot Fraud Case <read>

For those not familiar with the case, suspicions started with a single voter attempting to vote in-person being told that he has already voted absentee, followed by a State Elections Enforcement Investigation leading to a referral to Federal investigators. The Dem Chair was indicted, while a former Republican Town Clerk turned state’s evidence and was not indicted – this story says her crimes were less, not so sure

Mallozzi chose a court trial rather than a jury trial, so it was Randolph’s job to render a verdict.

One line in the judge’s decision seems to summarize his thinking on the case.

“By the defendant’s hand alone, 26 people could have had their civil right to vote extinguished,” Randolph said, reading his verdict into the record.

According to the trial record, 26 fraudulent absentee ballots were submitted to the town clerk’s office in a “scheme” involving Mallozzi and former Republican Town Clerk Donna Loglisci. The state, however, raised instances involving 14 voters, charging Mallozzi with 14 counts each of 2nd-degree forgery and false statement in absentee balloting.

Mallozzi, 72, could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison, or a fine that could total $140,000, or bo

But there was one surprising development in the trial:

Among the documents was a complaint sent to the FBI by a city official alleging improprieties in the town clerk’s office during the 2017 municipal election. Because of that, Randolph said he was obligated to inform the witnesses that they had the right not to testify because anything they said could be used against them by the FBI in its investigation.

Seeger said he’d planned to call Loglisci and two clerks that worked under her, Diane Pesiri and Maria Stabile, in his final chance to question them near the end of the trial. But Pesiri and Stabile declined to testify, as did Willy Giraldo, who also received ballots from Loglisci. After that, Seeger did not try to bring Loglisci or other witnesses to the stand.

Now there is more information: Stamford Clerk Warns FBI of Possible Ballot Fraud in Second Election <read>

About a year after she was elected town clerk in 2017, Lyda Ruijter discovered an odd database in her office computer files.

It contained information “that never should have been there,” Ruijter said Thursday.

The data listed 230 Stamford residents who’d voted by absentee ballot in the 2017 municipal election, according to Ruijter. She did not understand why the names were separated from the full list of absentee voters, she said.

In any given election, there should be exactly one list of absentee voters, she said…

She continued examining the data and found something else strange, Ruijter said.

Many absentee voters on the short list did not return their ballots to the town clerk’s office. But the full list showed that those same absentee voters did return their ballots, Ruijter said.

Further examination revealed that the converse was also true, according to Ruijter – the data showed that voters on the short list who were marked as having returned their ballots were marked on the full list as not having returned them.

The upshot of the conflicting sets of data was that the total number of voters who’d returned their absentee ballots was about the same, Ruijter found…

Her opponent, Loglisci, had lost the election with 44 percent of the in-person vote, Ruijter said. But Loglisci had won 62 percent of the absentee ballot vote…

In her letter Ruijter told the FBI that, at election time, Loglisci and select staff members sometimes worked “for many hours after closing,” once prompting a union grievance that overtime was unfairly offered only to the two clerks designated to issue absentee ballots.

Ranked-Choice Voting, Ned Lamont, and Connecticut

Last week, in return for an endorsement, Ned Lamont endorsed Ranked-Choice Voting Minor party endorses Lamont after a pledge for election reform

Monte Frank got one thing right that we have not seen recognized by anyone before:…

As I said in my testimony summary:

I am open to the benefits of IRV. Yet, I have several reservations about the use of IRV in Connecticut and other states. I support a comprehensive study of all IRV, RCV, and related options along with the challenges of implementing them in Connecticut.

I remain skeptical of all the touted benefits and if Connecticut voters are ready for the associated complexity, costs, and delays. For more see my testimony.

Last week, in return for an endorsement, Ned Lamont endorsed Ranked-Choice Voting Minor party endorses Lamont after a pledge for election reform <read>

Monte Frank got one thing right that we have not seen recognized by anyone before:

If reelected, Lamont pledged to propose legislation next year that would authorize ranked-choice voting for federal races and give municipalities the option in local elections.

A state constitutional amendment would be required to allow ranked-choice voting in elections for state offices, Frank said.

We have said it over and over, ranked-choice voting would require significant changes in the Election Calendar to support the extra days and weeks required to perform the initial counting and the recanvassing of ranked-choices, days to perform multiple runoff counts and then more days to recanvass critical rounds of reunoffs.(Some runoff rounds that are close, based on the outcome, change the eventual winner.)

For state elections our constitution severely limits all such counting to seven days after election day. There are also changes necessary such as changing the dates that some local office holders take office based on this extra needed time.

The article gets one thing wrong, when it says:

Ranked-choice voting is considered an instant runoff.

Ranked-choice voting is considered an instant runoff.

Ranked-Choice voting describes how the voters vote, choosing 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. While Instant Runoff is just one of several ways of counting ranked-choice votes. As I have pointed out in my testimony that is one of several errors in recent proposed bills.

As I said in my testimony summary:

I am open to the benefits of IRV. Yet, I have several reservations about the use of IRV in Connecticut and other states. I support a comprehensive study of all IRV, RCV, and related options along with the challenges of implementing them in Connecticut.

I remain skeptical of all the touted benefits and if Connecticut voters are ready for the associated complexity, costs, and delays. For more see that testimony <here>

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

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

Our Editorial

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

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

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

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

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

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

Editorial

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

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

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

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

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

Reminder: Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) beyond redemption

A new article by Andrew Appel reminds us: Magical thinking about Ballot-Marking-Device contingency plans .

The Center for Democracy and Technology recently published a report, “No Simple Answers: A Primer on Ballot Marking Device Security”, by William T. Adler. Overall, it’s well-informed, clearly presents the problems as of 2022, and it’s definitely worth reading. After explaining the issues and controversies, the report presents recommendations, most of which make a lot of sense, and indeed the states should act upon them. But there’s one key recommendation in which Dr. Adler tries to provide a simple answer, and unfortunately his answer invokes a bit of magical thinking…

This the magical thinking: “election officials should have a contingency plan.” The problem is, when you try to write down such a plan, there’s nothing that actually works! .

Fortunately Connecticut uses Hand Marked Paper Ballots except that it allows the IVS BMD to serve those with disabilities.

A new article by Andrew Appel reminds us: Magical thinking about Ballot-Marking-Device contingency plans <read>

The Center for Democracy and Technology recently published a report, “No Simple Answers: A Primer on Ballot Marking Device Security”, by William T. Adler. Overall, it’s well-informed, clearly presents the problems as of 2022, and it’s definitely worth reading. After explaining the issues and controversies, the report presents recommendations, most of which make a lot of sense, and indeed the states should act upon them. But there’s one key recommendation in which Dr. Adler tries to provide a simple answer, and unfortunately his answer invokes a bit of magical thinking. This seriously compromises the conclusions of his report. By asking but not answering the question of “what should an election official do if there are reports of BMDs printing wrong votes?”, Dr. Adler avoids having to make the inevitable conclusion that BMDs-for-all-voters is a hopelessly flawed, insecurable method of voting. Because the answer to that question is, unfortunately, there’s nothing that election officials could usefully do in that case…

This the magical thinking: “election officials should have a contingency plan.” The problem is, when you try to write down such a plan, there’s nothing that actually works! Suppose the election officials rely on voter reports (or on the rate of spoiled ballots); suppose the “contingency plan” says (for example) says “if x percent of the voters report malfunctioning BMDs, or y percent of voters spoil their ballots, then we will . . .” Then we will what? Remove those BMDs from service in the middle of the day? But then all the votes already cast on those BMDs will have been affected by the hack; that could be thousands of votes. Or what else? Discard all the paper ballots that were cast on those BMDs? Clearly you can’t do that without holding an entirely new election. And what if those x% or y% of voters were fraudulently reporting BMD malfunction or fraudulently spoiling their ballots to trigger the contingency plan? There’s no plan that actually works.

Fortunately Connecticut uses Hand Marked Paper Ballots except that it allows the IVS BMD to serve those with disabilities.

Poll Workers/Registrars challenges in CT and Nationally

A recent article in WhoWhatWhy outlines challenges across the country: Big Lie Fallout: Experts Fear Threats Will Cause Poll Workers to Quit

Election integrity experts are sounding the alarm that many election workers will leave their positions on the front lines of democracy unless they are protected from the types of threats and harassment that hundreds of them experienced after the 2020 election.

According to a 2022 survey from the Brennan Center for Justice, 1 in 5 local election officials are “very” or “somewhat unlikely” to continue serving through 2024. The survey stated that “politicians’ attacks on the system, stress, and retirement plans are the primary reasons they plan to leave their jobs.”

“There’s an air of menace that causes people to say, ‘Oh, the heck with this, I don’t want to do this anymore,’” said Elaine Kamarck, founding director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institute.

It may be different in Connecticut with perhaps worse results in too many towns:

We have not heard much about about open harassment, yet the job is getting ever tougher with massive amounts of FOI requests to some registrars and with town government, in many cases, ignoring calls for more funding, hours and staffing for overworked officials. No wonder they are quitting. In those situations it is a wonder anyone knowledgeable would step up or step in to help.

We hear that between Nov 2021 and a couple of months ago over 40% of Connecticut Registrars of Voters have resigned! That’s a lot more than the 1 in 5 thinking about it in the Brennan Survey; that does not include those already not running again in Nov 2022; and experienced registrars are even more important to our elections that experienced poll workers. At least poll workers, by law, must be paid for every hour they serve.

A recent article in WhoWhatWhy outlines challenges across the country: Big Lie Fallout: Experts Fear Threats Will Cause Poll Workers to Quit <read>

Election integrity experts are sounding the alarm that many election workers will leave their positions on the front lines of democracy unless they are protected from the types of threats and harassment that hundreds of them experienced after the 2020 election.

According to a 2022 survey from the Brennan Center for Justice, 1 in 5 local election officials are “very” or “somewhat unlikely” to continue serving through 2024. The survey stated that “politicians’ attacks on the system, stress, and retirement plans are the primary reasons they plan to leave their jobs.”

“There’s an air of menace that causes people to say, ‘Oh, the heck with this, I don’t want to do this anymore,’” said Elaine Kamarck, founding director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institute.

Kamarck added that there seems to be a concerted effort to terrify election workers. Many people who believe that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, she said, feel that election workers participated in “funny business” and counted the votes incorrectly, even though repeated investigations have found no evidence of that.

“It is intimidation. It’s the sort of intimidation that happens in banana republics,” she said. “It’s a disaster. I mean, it’s just an awful, awful problem.”

Kamarck said that the purpose of the individuals sending these threats is to “strike fear and try and scare you away from doing your job.”

And that’s exactly what they have done.

“What’s going on is terrifying,” said Jan BenDor, who worked for 18 years as an election administrator in Michigan.

The Department of Justice identified more than 850 incidents of threats and harassment targeting election workers, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service.

This atmosphere of intimidation caused the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) to call on all leaders to denounce threats of violence against election workers and officials. A report it adopted in February of last year showed the 2020 election cycle to be the “most challenging in recent memory,” where “unrelenting misinformation” led extremists to threaten and endanger election workers.

Kamarck described this as a significant assault on democracy.

“What they’re trying to do is undo the will of the people, and it is one of the most serious threats we’ve ever faced,” she said.

It may be different in Connecticut with perhaps worse results in too many towns: