CTVotersCount.org

Sanity returns (mostly) to Maryland

Paper Ballots Return to Maryland Elections. Once Maryland implements optical scan, there will only be five states left without a voter verified paper record for voting.

Paper Ballots Return to Maryland Elections <read>. Once Maryland implements optical scan, there will only be five states left without a voter verified paper record for voting. Apparently Maryland is very very slow at starting what they mandate.

The Maryland Board of Elections’ state administrator, Linda Lamone, said the coming year will be spent preparing polling center volunteers and educating voters.

Lamone said the General Assembly was given the go-ahead for the paper system in 2007, but only received funding for the switch last year. The cost to lease the machines alone is roughly $25 million, but that does not include additional costs such as storage and transportation of the units before and on Election Day.

She said one of the reasons for the mandate was that lawmakers “felt that it was safer” to have a paper record of every vote cast.

Lamone is know for opposing optical scan. We recall a Connecticut study in 2006 by TrueVoteCT’s Michael Fisher that demonstrated the total costs of acquiring and using optical scan at about half the comparable costs of DRE (Touch Screen) voting systems now in use in Maryland – Optical scanners cost a lot more, but you need only one and a backup to a polling place, you only have to program two, and the last longer.

We point out the obvious that Lamone must have had to transport and store the larger number of DREs as well.

Digital Democracy Good – for Voting Bad Bad Bad!

Our friends across the pond are thinking of Internet Voting. Tech unsavvy elders apparently want to entice young voters. Hopefully, the young are savvy enough to understand the security risks and are too smart to trust democracy to smart phones.

Editorial in ComputerWorldUK highlighted at TheVotingNews: Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting

Editorial in ComputerWorldUK highlighted at TheVotingNews: Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting <read>

Enabling people to vote online would indeed draw in many young people who otherwise wouldn’t vote, and that’s hugely important. So why am I against the idea? Well, the report quotes a good encapsulation of the key issues here by the Open Rights Group:

Voting is a uniquely difficult question for computer science: the system must verify your eligibility to vote; know whether you have already voted; and allow for audits and recounts. Yet it must always preserve your anonymity and privacy. Currently, there are no practical solutions to this highly complex problem and existing systems are unacceptably flawed.

Another warning [.pdf] comes from a formidable trio of security researchers in their submission to the Digital Democracy Commission:

In our view, the adoption of online voting technology would present extremely grave challenges to the integrity of UK elections, and risk disadvantaging significant sections of the population, which would present a real danger of undermining public confidence in democracy rather than strengthening it as the Commission rightly seeks to do.

Finally, people who oppose the use of new technology for well-established activities are sometimes accused of being Luddites and of letting their ignorance stand in the way of perfectly acceptable change. In the case of e-voting, we believe that the more familiar people are with the technology, the more they understand the very substantial risks that it poses to the democratic process. It is ignorance that leads people to suppose that e-voting is risk-free and desirable; and it is technical experts such as us (and our colleagues whose carefully-argued papers we have cited) who are cautioning against embracing e-voting for the foreseeable future.

Citizen Audit Cites Improvements, Faults Flaws, in Official Election Audits

SOTS Office makes improvements, significant Registrars of Voters flaws continue

Improvements noted by the Citizen Audit include:

Small, yet significant improvements in and corrections to the Official Audit Procedures made by the Secretary of the State’s Office (SOTS Office) at the request of the Citizen Audit.
Increased integrity and credibility of the audit based on a Citizen Audit of the random drawing of districts and races. (As reported separately on 1/21/2015)
- Significantly fewer errors in the random drawing list in November 2014 compared to November 2013.
- Public and transparent drawing of races to be audited after the November election.

The audit observation report concluded that the official audit results do not inspire confidence after eight years and fourteen audits, because of the continued:

Lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
Discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities.
Lack of investigation of such discrepancies, and the lack of standards for triggering such investigations.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.

The audit observations also uncovered tabulator errors and inadequate election procedures which cause some votes for registered write-in candidates to not be counted.

Citizen Audit spokesperson Luther Weeks stated, “We appreciate improvements made by the Secretary of the State’s Office. We remain disappointed after eight years that significant improvements remain to achieve a credible audit, especially by local election officials, in too many municipalities.”

<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release>
Detail data/municipal reports <Nov> <Aug>

SOTS Office makes improvements, significant Registrars of Voters flaws continue

Improvements noted by the Citizen Audit include:

Small, yet significant improvements in and corrections to the Official Audit Procedures made by the Secretary of the State’s Office (SOTS Office) at the request of the Citizen Audit.
Increased integrity and credibility of the audit based on a Citizen Audit of the random drawing of districts and races. (As reported separately on 1/21/2015)
- Significantly fewer errors in the random drawing list in November 2014 compared to November 2013.
- Public and transparent drawing of races to be audited after the November election.

The audit observation report concluded that the official audit results do not inspire confidence after eight years and fourteen audits, because of the continued:

Lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
Discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities.
Lack of investigation of such discrepancies, and the lack of standards for triggering such investigations.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.

The audit observations also uncovered tabulator errors and inadequate election procedures which cause some votes for registered write-in candidates to not be counted.

<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release>
Detail data/municipal reports <Nov> <Aug>

Hartford Election Report: Sad, yet an easy recommended read.

As they and we often say, “Diagnosis before cure”. Lest the cure be ineffective or worse than the disease.

The Hartford Common Council empowered a Committee of Inquiry to gather facts on the widely reported late opening of polls on election day, the long known disfunction in the Registrars Office, and the less reported inaccurate, yet to be corrected reports of election results. We recommend reading the whole report. It is an easy read, yet sad, disappointing, and as some have said outrageous

The Hartford Common Council empowered a Committee of Inquiry to gather facts on the widely reported late opening of polls on election day, the long known disfunction in the Registrars Office, and the less reported inaccurate, yet to be corrected reports of election results. Here is the summary. We recommend reading the whole report. It is an easy read, yet sad, disappointing, and as some have said outrageous. <full report>

The Committee’s investigation confirmed that several Hartford polling places did not allow voting to commence at 6:00 a.m., as required by law. In addition, the investigation revealed additional irregularities. The Head Moderator failed to account for all of the absentee ballots received, failed to correctly tally and report the vote count, and failed to submit a timely Amended Head Moderator’s Return. The Hartford Registrars:

failed to provide the Secretary of the State (“SOTS”) with information about the polling place moderators ;

failed to file the final registry books with the Town Clerk by October 29

failed to timely prepare and deliver the final registry books by 8:00 p.m. on November 3, and thereafter failed to develop or implement a plan for delivering the books to the polling places before the polls opened at 6:00 a.m. on November 4;

failed to adequately prepare and open several polling places;

failed to maintain adequate communications among key election day personnel;

failed to provide the Head Moderator with the proper form to submit his Head Moderator’s Return in advance of the election;

failed to attend a statutorily required meeting to correct errors in the Head Moderator’s Return; and

failed to identify and correct discrepancies in the vote tallies reported by the Head Moderator, with the result that the final vote tally remains unclear, and no Hartford election official can explain what happened to approximately 70 absentee ballots reported as having been received

In short, multiple, serious errors plagued the administration of the 2014 General Election in Hartford. These errors appear to have resulted in the disenfranchisement of Hartford voters and, even several months later, a lack of an accurate vote count.

The Committee has determined that many of the Election Day problems are attributable to errors or omissions by certain Hartford election officials (as described in detail below); a dysfunctional working relationship among all election officials; a lack of leadership and accountability; and the absence of a clear, legally prescribed chain of command.

Once again, I recommend reading the entire report. It really brings home the points made in the summary.

I add some additional thoughts:

Nobody seems interested in actually determining what happened to the “missing” ballots, or determining the actual vote count — a team could easily get all the numbers from the tape and at least determine votes for governor from the machines, which are very very likely to be less than the number of ballots counted by the machines — this report demonstrates, unsurprisingly, that people should not count anything alone, but should work together to verify addition and transcription. Double checking by “two eyes” works.
Some authority could also actually count all the ballots and votes by hand. I will guarantee the number of votes per race will not exceed the number of ballots. (If the count is accurate)
Someone authority could actually count the number of envelopes for ABs. Then count then number of ABs checked-off, then count the number returned on the Clerk’s log…then if there is a discrepancy, match the envelopes to the voter names on both those lists to help uncover the source of any differences.
How many other towns have check-in lists, or ballot counts that are way off from vote counts? Does anybody check…or has this only surfaced because of the visible problems on election day? (We know some towns and moderators check and that others have at least sometimes not)
The official system has yet to a) recognize the actual counts in Bridgeport for Governor in 2010. b) never audited the other towns in 2010 with many copied, hand counted ballots c) Never checked other towns since then that that have had huge numbers of hand counted votes on copied ballots – even those that have chosen deliberately to forgo scanners in some elections. d) Never checked the discrepancies between voters checked-in in Bridgeport vs. ballots in 2010, or checked for such errors anywhere else!!!
And, in Hartford, how about checking the reported counts that weren’t for Governor?

Make no mistake. We applaud the investigation as far as it went. It provides plenty to consider and change.

Yet the Hartford Courant is dissatisfied with the report, apparently believes the investigation was unnecessary. Reflection and deliberation, based on effective gathering of facts, in their opinion, seems a waste of time. The Editorial Board would also apparently place the prime responsibility for choosing actions solely on the Mayor over the entire Council.

Thumbs down on lack of city plan to fix registrar mess-ups

Thumbs still down on Hartford’s handling of the registrar of voters mess. Mayor Pedro Segarra and city council president Shawn Wooden formed a council committee to investigate the registrars’ election day screw-ups. The committee reported Friday what everyone already knew — the registrars bungled things so badly that some polls were unable to open on time. The Friday announcement is full of indignant language — but not a peep about what the mayor plans to do about the situation. “That is being determined,” a spokesperson said. Lame.

As they and we often say, “Diagnosis before cure”. Lest the cure be ineffective or worse than the disease.

WNPR Where We Live: Inside Cyber Security

Yesterday, Where We Live, with John Dankowski, was a discussion of Cyber Security for consumers and business.

At about 17:49 into the show, I called in and reminded John Dankoski of the Secretary of the State’s Symposium on Online voting that he moderated just over three years ago. In response to my comment, Professor Bryan Ford of Yale, gave a very thorough summary of the potential risks of Internet voting.

Yesterday, Where We Live, with John Dankoski, was a discussion of Cyber Security for consumers and business. Listen to the program here <podcast>

At about 17:49 into the show, I called in and reminded John Dankoski of the Secretary of the State’s Symposium on Online Voting that he moderated just over three years ago. The Symposium was intended for legislators. Only three actually attended.

To little avail, the legislature twice passed Internet voting for military and overseas voters – every time a business, government agency, or the Military is hacked it gets less and less believable that Internet voting is safe for democracy, less and less believable that the State or all of our 169 towns can defend Internet voting from attackers.

In response to my comment, Professor Bryan Ford of Yale, gave a very thorough summary of the potential risks of Internet voting.

The whole show is a great summary of the wide range of risks to consumers and the challenges to our infrastructure, specifically utilities.

Election Reformers as Entertainers?

Last week Paul Krugman had an interesting Economics editorial that by analogy can apply to some election reformers as well. In general, I agree with Mr. Krugman when it comes to Economics. Beyond that he has a skill making readable opinion pieces that make single points well, even if they are based on very detailed economic theory or analysis. This article is a little different in subject, yet makes an important, useful point that applies widely, including to election reformers

Last week Paul Krugman had an interesting Economics editorial that by analogy can apply to some election reformers as well: Economists as Entertainers <read>

In general, I agree with Mr. Krugman when it comes to Economics. Beyond that he has a skill making readable opinion pieces that make single points well, even if they are based on very detailed economic theory or analysis. This article is a little different in subject, yet makes an important, useful point that applies widely, including to election reformers:

According to researchers in Britain, more than half of the health advice that Dr. Oz gives is either baseless (there’s no evidence for his claims) or wrong (there is evidence, and it contradicts what he says). Julia Belluz at Vox tells us not to be surprised: “He is, after all, in the business of entertainment,” she wrote recently.

But the thing is, there are a lot of Dr. Ozzes out there, including in areas you might not consider the entertainment business…

But I now also suspect that the personality traits you need to be an effective entertainer working with not-so-much-fun subjects like health or monetary policy are inherently at odds with the traits you need to be even halfway competent.

If Dr. Oz were the kind of guy who pores over medical evidence to be sure he knows what he’s talking about, he probably couldn’t project the persona that wins him such a large audience. Similarly, a hired-gun economist who actually knows how to download charts from economic databases probably wouldn’t have the kind of blithe certainty in right-wing dogma that his employers want.

How does this apply to election reformers?

It seems to me, in my experience, that many reformers are always rational and scientific in their approach to any issue, even though they may have biases. We try hard at CTVotersCount, in posts, and in testimony, to provide honest, accurate and comprehensive information about election issues even when the evidence hurts our case. (Hopefully, if there is enough evidence against our position we will change our position, if the weight of accumulated evidence points away from our past position.)

Yet, we run into others who frequently tout things that are unproven, untrue, and contrary to evidence. For example:

Legislators and advocates that ignore the evidence of electronic vulnerability to claim that Internet voting is safe. Despite of the evidence of hacking of business and government; despite the opposition of security experts and computer scientists, including those at Homeland Security, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Department of Defense studies; despite the fact that online banking is safe only because banks pay billions annual to reimburse for theft.
Advocates that claim that early voting will increase turnout, when it actually decreases turnout. (There are reasons to be for and against early voting, but turnout is not a reason to be for it.)
Advocates for Voter ID who claim, despite evidence to the contrary, that there is a lot of votER fraud. Despite several witch hunts after every election, votER fraud is very very low.
Advocates for absentee/mail-in voting that claim that no votER fraud means that such voting is safe. They ignore and deny the actual evidence of frequent multiple-ballot votING fraud, that is accomplished by mail.
Advocates for the National Popular Vote Agreement that claim, for no reason, that fraud and suppression will not increase in all states, just as we have seen in some swing states, if we go to a popular vote without a uniform, enforceable voting system to match.
Advocates for the National Popular Vote Agreement who claim there could be a recount after a popular vote, when half of states have no recount law, all laws are based on close state votes – not close national votes, and that there is no body to declare and manage a nationwide recount.

Just some of the examples analogous to Paul Krugman’s Economic Entertainers. Yet, we have a hard time calling them Entertainers. Some are incompetent, some deluded, and others we might call advocates or lobbyists for hire.

Not everything you want, is a solution to every problem

In Wednesday’s print edition of the Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda Toward A More Open Government. There is much to like and agree with in the editorial: Stronger investigative subpoena for state prosecutors; closing the cash spigot for campaign finance; and strengthening the watchdog agencies.

While we are skeptical of the benefits of open primaries, their potential, and ultimately the value of “more moderate nominees”, we are particularly in disagreement with one section, Do-Over for Early Voting.

Its been said that when you only have a hammer, you see that as a cure to every problem.

In Wednesday’s print edition of the Hartford Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda Toward A More Open Government,<read>. There is much to like and agree with in the editorial: Stronger investigative subpoena for state prosecutors; closing the cash spigot for campaign finance; and strengthening the watchdog agencies.

It’s a shame that voters turned down a ballot question that would have removed rigid language in the state constitution that restricts voting to just one day and the voter to one polling place. Lawmakers should put the question on the ballot again.

The measure would have permitted the General Assembly to authorize early voting, no-excuse absentee voting and voting by mail — reforms that make voting more convenient for busy people and increase turnout.

Thirty-four states have early voting, which means the polls are open longer hours or for days before Election Day. Any of these reforms would have been an antidote to the kind of official incompetence that shortened voting hours in Hartford on Nov. 4.

As we have covered in several posts before the election, <here here here here> we have several concerns with no-excuse absentee/mail-in voting. While we support in-person early voting, we doubt that the Connecticut Legislature is ready to pay for the expenses and call for the reorganization necessary to support in-person early voting.

With regards to this specific editorial, we point out that:

We do not get a link between the problems in Hartford in 2014 and an obvious cure in early voting or no-excuse absentee/mail-in voting. One view is that absentee check-off and list printing was too much work to get done in time for election day opening – increasing early voting would only add to that. Another view is that it was some combination of incompetence and arrogance that caused the problems – more early voting would not solve such problems.

Its been said that when you only have a hammer, you see that as a cure to every problem.

In the past it was argued that the problems of Hurricane Sandy would have been solved by early voting – that also is hard to understand unless voters appropriately predict a storm and voted early, while officials were able to expand early voting to cover an unanticipated volume. Or conversely the storm hit during early voting and the post-office managed to still get the votes in, while officials were able to increase capacity on election day to make up for unexpected lower early voting.

Also early voting in none of its forms increases turnout, in actually DECREASES turnout. Once again, we have covered this in several posts over the years <e.g. here>. As we pointed out last time, the Courant does not listen to computer science and security professionals when it comes to connecting our voting machines to the Internet. Here they should be listening to political scientists who show that early voting decreases turnout.

Ambitious agenda should be reasoned and well-planned

In today’s print edition of the Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda 2015: Ambitious Goals For The State, one portion focuses on elections,

We diverge from the Courant in our opinion. We continue to point out that the most comprehensive system of election administration reform would be to regionalize elections, obtaining some of the same benefits obtained by regionalizing probate.

Also, Professionalization does not include ignoring science. There is a reason we do not connect our scanners to the internet to report results.

In today’s print edition of the Hartford Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda 2015: Ambitious Goals For The State, one portion focuses on elections:

Elections

Isn’t it time Connecticut’s registrars came into the 21st century? Hartford was so unprepared for Election Day that President Obama had to beg voters who had given up waiting to vote to try again.

State law should be changed to let towns and cities appoint a single trained nonpartisan registrar. The current system under which two registrars (or more) are elected for each town is expensive, wasteful, inefficient. Connecticut needs to professionalize these offices or have municipal clerks take over the job. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy is right to call for reforming the state’s entire election system in 2015.

The state must professionalize voting too. Machines here could transmit results electronically, as in Massachusetts, but they aren’t allowed to. Instead, pages of results are hand-transcribed and faxed to the state the next day. What is this, 1992?

And can the legislature silence those irritating, intrusive political robocalls that invade households at election time? Though most unsolicited pitches are against the law, political robocalls are legal. Some states ban or restrict them. So should Connecticut.

We really have two basic problems with election administration. One predominantly in small towns and another in large towns. In smaller towns there is often a lack of sufficient funds and time for very part time registrars to keep up with the laws, requirements, and technology, and to have staff members to gain such experience to be possible replacements. In large towns there are sufficient funds and staff, yet in some there is a a lack of professional actions – apparently replaced by some incompetence and excuse making. Patronage and selecting candidates by party loyalty often contributes to the problem. Some of these same problems exist in mid-sized towns as well. It would be unfair and highly inaccurate to paint all registrars with this same brush. Most are of individuals of integrity, some in large towns are very competent or employ competent staff, many in small towns expend the efforts necessary despite low pay.

No system is perfect. There are states with effective county administrators, elected or appointed. Yet there are areas with incompetent and obviously unfairly partisan officials appointed, and elected.

Its hard to believe that registrars appointed by the Hartford or Bridgeport Council’s (or any towns) would reduce partisan action/pressure. It might work sometimes, and not work other times. That is no improvement. Registrars make important decisions effecting who is on the ballot, who runs polling places, and when to recanvass a suspicious result. In 2010 the Secretary of the State’s Office reached an agreement with the registrars in Bridgeport to audit every district after the election day debacle – the agreement was nixed by the Mayor and city attorneys. As for saving money, its the council’s that set the salaries for registrars and deputies today.

Moving elections to the clerks would be close to moving deck chairs on the Titanic. It would not solve the time and money problems for small towns. For large towns it would not change the risks of political pressure or in itself save money.

We do need more professionalism in election administration. Less partisan, more professional administration. That requires some form of education and certification, plus a career path so individuals can learn the job and make elections a career. That is why we recommend rationalization with appointed officials.

Also, Professionalization does not include ignoring science. There is a reason we do not connect our scanners to the internet to report results. The Professionals at Uconn agree with other computer scientists and security experts that connecting voting machines to the Internet or phone systems is unsafe. That is why we do not to it. In fact, Connecticut is much earlier than many other states in reporting election results. Where we need professionalism is in taking a bit more time to report more accurate, more complete results.

General Assembly ready to protect everything Internet. Except voting?

Meanwhile Congress, in-spite of gridlock, takes the time to appeal old law calling for Internet voting experiments. Isn’t it time for the General Assembly to follow suit?

Hartford Courant article yesterday: Drones, Privacy: Legislative Issues Reflect Changing Times <read>

The coming legislative session is likely to be dominated by the usual fights over taxes and spending. But lawmakers are also poised to ponder other issues that reflect changes in the social fabric propelled by technology.

From protecting student privacy from firms seeking to access a burgeoning trove of educational data to regulating smartphone – based car services such as Uber to a bold future of drones and driverless cars, the General Assembly could be asked to craft public policy on concepts that scarcely existed a few years ago…

Rep. Vin Candelora, the deputy leader of the House Republican caucus, said that in many ways these are the issues that define our times. “I really think issues are as big as the budget. One is dealing with our fiscal health but these are dealing with the health of our society,” he said.

“The big theme here is data collection. What are people’s rights to privacy? Once information gets out on the Internet, it can never be taken back,”

In 2013 the Legislature unanimously passed Internet voting for the second time. It was vetoed the 1st time for good reason by Governor Malloy, yet signed inexplicably the second time. It would force the Secretary of the State and 169 towns individually to do what the State, the U.S. Government, (including the Military), retailers, and big banks, not to mention Sony have failed to do: Defy science and secure the Internet. <read our past stories on Internet voting here>

Time to ask your legislator “If Internet banking attacks annualy cost banks billions, and Sony cannot protect its email from North Korea, how can you expect our town registrars to protect Internet voting? Who will pay for an election debacle?”

Some related good news:

Congress, in-spite of gridlock, takes the time to appeal 2002 law calling for Internet voting experiments. Isn’t it time for the General Assembly to follow suit?

Last week the National Defense Authorization Act contained a small provision appreciated by voting integrity advocates, repealing a mandate for demonstration project for Internet voting project:

FY 15 NDAA Bill Text (RULES COMMITTEE PRINT 113–58 HOUSE AMENDMENT TO THE TEXT OF S. 1847) (now Act):

“SEC. 593. REPEAL OF ELECTRONIC VOTING DEMONSTRATION PROJECT.

Section 1604 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 (Public Law 107–107; 52 U.S.C. 20301 note) is repealed.”

Joint Explanatory Statement (JOINT EXPLANATORY STATEMENT TO ACCOMPANY THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 (which accompanies the Act):

Repeal of electronic voting demonstration project (sec. 593)

The Senate committee-reported bill contained a provision(sec. 1076) that would repeal section 1604 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 (Public Law 107- 107)that requires the Secretary of Defense to carry out an electronic voting demonstration project. The House bill contained no similar provision. The agreement includes this provision.

Advocates have long worked to have the act repealed and to get the FVAP to reveal results of a study of Internet voting. As we posted last September: What is FVAP hiding? Whom if anyone are they assisting?

Hopefully, it won’t take 12 years for Connecticut to understand the risks of Internet voting and repeal its risky 2013 law.

Election Day Registration: Sadly, we told you so.

But one thing is clear, Election Day Registration (EDR) has failed to meet the expectations of its proponents – unfortunately results were more in line with our predictions.

Like the rest of the U.S., Connecticut had low turn out in the November 2014 mid-terms. Much better than the national average. It is always hard to judge the cause of turnout differences in a single election. But one thing is clear, Election Day Registration (EDR) has failed to meet the expectations of its proponents – unfortunately results were more in line with our predictions.

According to PEW, <read>

Citizens showed up to vote at lower rates than in any federal election since the middle of World War II. Preliminary data indicate that national turnout was below 37 percent. That means nearly 2 in 3 eligible voters, or approximately 144 million American citizens—more than the population of Russia—chose to sit this election out. The nation hasn’t seen turnout this low in any federal general election since 1942. Even in recent midterms, when the turnout was remarkably low, it still exceeded 40 percent, meaning millions more Americans voted in 2006 and 2010 than in 2014.

Examples of the problem can be seen in New Mexico and Nevada, which, despite high-profile statewide races at several levels (governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, etc., as well as a U.S. Senate race in New Mexico), saw their lowest turnouts in a federal election since before 1980. Nevada in particular stands out: Turnout there plummeted to less than 32 percent, a drop of almost 10 percentage points compared with 2010.

According to the Secretary of the State our turnout was dismal, while she was upbeat on the results for EDR: <read>

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill today released the final, comprehensive voter turnout figures from the 2014 general election showing that some 55.57% of registered voters in Connecticut cast ballots on Election Day November 4, 2014…Secretary Merrill is also reporting that some 13,995 new voters in Connecticut were able to cast ballots using Election Day Registration. This number represents 1.3% of the total votes cast in 2014, the first statewide, non-municipal election since Election Day Registration was enacted in Connecticut…

One thing I am very proud of is the large number of new voters – nearly 14,000 – who were able to participate
in democracy due to Election Day Registration! This was a total success and implemented statewide without any serious problems. This speaks volumes about the preparation undertaken by local election officials to accommodate new crowds of voters across the state.

We take little pleasure in pointing out that while we support EDR, we have been pessimistic about the current law and its implementation. First. because the law requires a slow and arduous process that is more time consuming and less convenient that the process provided by states that are touted as models of successful EDR results. Second, because it can disenfranchise some new, inexperienced voters, by not letting them cast their votes into optical scanners, leaving them without the check and second chance when they have overvoted. Finally, we object to the implementation of EDR with procedures that specify that citizens in line at 8:00pm have no right to attempt to register and vote – to us that goes beyond serving the public, to a sad civil rights violation, just waiting to be challenged in court (hopefully before it could put an election result in jeopardy). For our many posts describing the real and potential problems see <here>.

We know that that EDR could do so much more if it was done as those other states do it. We are not cheering so loudly as Secretary Merrill. In fact, EDR fell far short of one of her two contradictory predictions a couple of years ago EDR – Proponents cannot have it both ways <read, view> As we and the Secretary said at the time:

In this interview the Secretary claims early on (8:25 in the video) that states recently implementing EDR have a 10% increase in turnout, but then later finds it hard to accept John [Hartwell]’s example of 10% of voters in Westport using EDR (21:20) as “assuming a very large number”. Contrary to the Secretary’s contention that “it is all done by computer”, registering someone who is registered elsewhere in Connecticut involves calling a registrars office, that office calling a polling place, and then responding back to make sure the voter had not previously voted.

It is correct that testing in a low turnout election (2013) would be a good time to roll out the system. However, that can also generate a false sense of confidence, with a huge turnout and huge EDR turnout in a later more popular election (2014 or 2016).

One last thing we sadly got right was the potential for voters left in the line at 8:00pm in New Haven, 100 Voters Turned Away In EDR Crush<read>

Officials anticipated around 200 people coming to City Hall for Election Day Registration (EDR), based on last year’s turnout. Surprise: More than three times that amount showed up over the course of Election Day, overwhelming staffers and leaving some people waiting up to two hours to cast a ballot.

When the polls closed at 8 p.m., those in line who had completed the registration process were allowed to vote, but under state law moderators had turn the other 100 or so people away without a ballot. Six hundred nineteen people got to register and vote. (The official number was being tallied late Tuesday night.)

We did get one thing wrong, it did not take until a really popular election. As we said earlier, we disagree that “under state law moderators had [to] turn the other 100 or so people away”, it is a procedural limitation, likely unenforceable and, part of the law or not, contestable as a civil rights violation.

Just to be complete, we also would debate the claim that everyone who used EDR was a “new voter”. The figures include those who regularly vote, had not moved, and were mysteriously thrown off the rolls. (Given my experience running EDR in my town, that could represent 5% to 10% of the EDR voters. Not to mention the many new voters who thought they had registered with the online system, only to find at their polling that they had not. Both categories of citizens had to go from their polling places to wait in line at our EDR location. As I mentioned to to Secretary of the State, Peggy Reeves “It is great that EDR is there to make up for such errors, the registration system still needs to be fixed to avoid those problems”.