CTVotersCount.org

Close vote highlights concerns with mail-in elections

There is a very close vote on a GMO issue in Oregon, creating a statewide recount and lots of controversy. Brad Friedman has an excellent summary of the controversies and also election integrity concerns: <read>

Oregon GMO Ballot Measure ‘Recount’ Highlights Concern About Excluded Vote-by-Mail Ballots

With razor-thin 812 vote margin, proponents charge 4,600 ballots remain illegally uncounted due to ‘problems’ with signatures

Questions about state procedures underscore shortcomings of Vote-by-Mail balloting…

The entire article is worth reading. Without taking sides here (although personally, I strongly favor GMO labeling) from an election integrity standpoint:

It seems likely, if all the ballots were counted, the Yes would win.
Unless there was significant organized votING fraud most of those ballots would in an ideal world deserve to be counted.
There will always be legitimate questions based on the potential for such organized fraud, since it has been proven to occur quite regularly. There will be charges with or without proof, and claims of lack of proof indicates a lack of fraud.
Its very difficult to accurately compare large numbers of signatures without many that should be questioned are not be questioned and with many that are questioned being actually legitimate.
Any signature check should be subjected to peer-reviewed evaluation of its legitimacy to detect fraud, and avoid false negatives as a prerequisite for considering mass absentee or mail-in voting. (We are not aware of any such evaluation of any system in use for elections).
Beyond the risks to actual integrity, credibility is lost on the part of all those who question fraud and all those who question rejections of ballots. Legitimately both are in question here.

In the specific case here:

We agree with Brad than citizens should be able to observe elections, and the requirement of being an elector in Oregon is too restrictive.
On the other hand, there needs to be limits on the number of observers who can observe closely, legitimate representatives of both sides, especially those from Oregon deserve some level of priority.
And there must be limits on behavior of observers, and protocols for the surfacing and the handling of objections.
We believe that it was sufficiently demonstrated that there were significant disruptions in the 2000 Florida recount that should have been controlled. Without more details and perhaps video’s we are not in a position to judge the extent and legitimacy of the charges of disruption in this case, in Oregon.

Will it take a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 for Internet security (and voting integrity)?

To err is human, to react without thinking is to compound the err

The goal should be to solve a problem of huge risk, without requiring a catastrophe, without attacking others, spending what is necessary and moving on.

Let us also not forget the twin risks of doing nothing and doing too much of the wrong thing, apply as Connecticut tackles our voting system which may have had a wake up call this November, but nothing like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

To err is human, to react without thinking is to compound the err

A thoughtful post at the NY Times, that deserves a better title: Hacked vs. Hackers: Game On <read>

The problem, Mr. Kocher and security experts reason, is a lack of liability and urgency. The Internet is still largely held together with Band-Aid fixes. Computer security is not well regulated, even as enormous amounts of private, medical and financial data and the nation’s computerized critical infrastructure — oil pipelines, railroad tracks, water treatment facilities and the power grid — move online.

After a year of record-setting hacking incidents, companies and consumers are finally learning how to defend themselves and are altering how they approach computer security.

If a stunning number of airplanes in the United States crashed tomorrow, there would be investigations, lawsuits and a cutback in air travel, and the airlines’ stock prices would most likely plummet. That has not been true for hacking attacks, which surged 62 percent last year, according to the security company Symantec. As for long-term consequences, Home Depot, which suffered the worst security breach of any retailer in history this year, has seen its stock float to a high point.

In a speech two years ago, Leon E. Panetta, the former defense secretary, predicted it would take a “cyber-Pearl Harbor” — a crippling attack that would cause physical destruction and loss of life — to wake up the nation to the vulnerabilities in its computer systems.

No such attack has occurred. Nonetheless, at every level, there has been an awakening that the threats are real and growing worse, and that the prevailing “patch and pray” approach to computer security simply will not do.

I agree that the problem is huge. We should hope that it does not take an attack like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 to change things. How would World War II have gone without Pearl Harbor – I suspect not much different. I am not a historian. I was not alive then, but overall our reaction to Pearl Harbor was on balance justified, appropriate, and successful. I do not think that 9/11 worked out that way, our wars “of choice” in Iraq and Afghanistan have yet to be successful, have been arguably unjustified and inappropriate as well. They certainly have been costly with no end in sight. When it comes to security, again the Patriot Act was a knee-jerk reaction, with every wishlist item of the security state fulfilled. It is questionable that the fortune and liberties we have sacrificed have been worth it or that all in all we are safer.

The goal should be to solve a problem of huge risk, without requiring a catastrophe, without attacking others, spending what is necessary and moving on.

That has happened once that I know of. It was called Y2K, a disaster avoided, a significant yet limited expense. Y2K was real, those warning about it in the late 1980’s were ignored for many years. The ultimate risk was overblown by the media, then when all went well we had years of poopooing the risk as overblown. For the record, I was a Y2K contractor for a bit over two years for three companies – I did small jobs that needed to be accomplished, where I was uniquely qualified. There were excesses. In fact, I helped save a client from a wasteful proposal. Yet overall we solved and prevented a problem that could have been avoided at a lower cost if more leaders had listened to those who warned us early. Even now, occasionally someone in a discussion will complain about “all the money computer programmers took home working on Y2K”, as if that caused our deficit. Yet, it is worth it to me, it to know that a real problem was avoided, despite the occasional uninformed criticism.

Yet as this article points out, we have already paid a huge, largely unrecognized price for Internet vulnerablity:

The Wake-Up Call
A bleak recap: In the last two years, breaches have hit the White House, the State Department, the top federal intelligence agency, the largest American bank, the top hospital operator, energy companies, retailers and even the Postal Service. In nearly every case, by the time the victims noticed that hackers were inside their systems, their most sensitive government secrets, trade secrets and customer data had already left the building. And in just the last week Sony Pictures Entertainment had to take computer systems offline because of an aggressive attack on its network.

The impact on consumers has been vast. Last year, over 552 million people had their identities stolen, according to Symantec, and nearly 25,000 Americans had sensitive health information compromised — every day — according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Over half of Americans, including President Obama, had to have their credit cards replaced at least once because of a breach, according to the Ponemon Group, an independent research organization.

But the value of those stolen credit cards, which trade freely in underground criminal markets, is eclipsed by the value of the intellectual property that has been siphoned out of United States corporations, universities and research groups by hackers in China — so much so that security experts now say there are only two types of companies left in the United States: those that have been hacked and those that do not yet know they have been hacked.

And this year, American companies learned it was not just Beijing they were up against. Thanks to revelations by the former intelligence agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, companies worry about protecting their networks from their own government. If the tech sector cannot persuade foreign customers that their data is safe from the National Security Agency, the tech industry analysis firm Forrester Research predicts that America’s cloud computing industry stands to lose $180 billion — a quarter of its current revenue — over the next two years to competitors abroad.

Finally, let us also not forget the twin risks of doing nothing and doing too much of the wrong thing, apply as Connecticut tackles our voting system which may have had a wake up call this November, but nothing like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. On 9/11, I had a temporary pass to enter the World Trade Center and had friends that worked there – what happened in Hartford on November 4th, and the Courant not getting all the results that night was no 9/11.

Connecticut not alone in election adminstration challenges

Since the election on November 4th we have had all sorts of complaints about Connecticut election administration. Claims that we are the slowest, with the most clueless election officials. And all sorts of cures proposed including more mail-in votes, electronic calculation of results, and reorganization of election administration.

We agree with that their are many problems. We agree with the general outlines of some of the cures. Yet, we caution against knee-jerk reaction, and change without planning and analysis.

We suggest looking at the best practices from other states. Yet, we can also learn from the mistakes and foibles of other states. Often those employing some of those very cures proposed for Connecticut.

We agree with that their are many problems. We agree with the general outlines of some of the cures. Yet, we caution against knee-jerk reaction, and change without planning and analysis.

Lets look at the recent news:

11/17 NJ not so quick in reporting results Using equipment from the same vendor as Connecticut, NJ has problems, delays, and investigations of slow accumulation/reporting of results electronically. Then again, some other states below reported fast, with much less accuracy than Connecticut or New Jersey.

1/25 Mail voting: Not so fast, not so easy, not so simple Take Oregon and their all-mail voting, please. A highly charged ballot question is yet to be decided. In fact they have just counted enough votes to realize they need a recount. Here is the issue, some 13,000 votes were not counted because of possible signature mismatches. So advocates contacted voters after the election to see if they actually voted and requested they come in and sign their ballot or show their signature changed.. We have some of our own issues with all this:

Just how good is their signature matching? Has anyone evaluated their methods. What are the odds they missed more questionable signatures? How many of those 13,000 should not have been questioned?
Does the result depend on which side got more voters to come in and sign (demographics can indicate how a voter might have tended to vote)
And we complain that some results in Connecticut were not available until Nov 5th?
PS: This problem will never happen in Connecticut as we never match signatures. (See no evil…)

11/25 MN lowest turn out since 1986 Many claim, anecdotally and incorrectly, that no-excuse absentee voting is a panacea for increasing turnout. Apparently, anecdotally, it has not helped Minnesota all that much.

11/25 The Maine question: Will 21 mystery ballots change looser into winner? Connecticut has problems with ballot counts not matching check-in list counts, and a greater problem with some officials not checking that those numbers match. At least in Maine there is a recognition that this might be a problem, especially if extra ballots are found after the initial count.

1/26 Electronic result totals not alwasy even close to accurate Here we go again with that electronic tallying of votes. They only missed about one-third of the votes. Fortunately, a news outlet found the error. They say the problem has been fixed, yet sounds more like the error has been corrected in the results of this one election. They are not counting accurately in Kansas any more.

Editorial: Diagnosis before cure. Planning before plunging ahead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone should understand and recognize:

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

Editorial, Diagnosis before cure. Planning before plunging ahead.

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

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

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

Catching Up – More Post-Election Fallout

Starting with three more articles in the Courant on Thursday: An apology, a column, and an editorial.

Starting with three more articles in the Hartford Courant on Thursday: An apology, a column, and an editorial. <read>

Uraina Petit the Working Families Party provided an apology: Hartford Registrar: ‘I Am So Incredibly Sorry’. You can read the article, our comment online was:

Apology accepted. There is more work to do. There is accountability ahead. Yet, we should all appreciate what it takes to apologize in this situation,and take responsibility for what happened. Sad to see the majority of comments are so vitriolic and completely devoid of understanding.

Next was an opinion piece by Dan Haar, business reporter, delving into election administration Get Rid Of Hartford’s Voter Registrars. Haar has some very good insights on the business beat. We suggest he keep that day job, and observe election administration more closely to provide more appropriate diagnosis and cure.

For the most part this piece gets the problems right. Its also correct that regionailization is key to facilitating many improvements. Beyond that it is a complex system, that needs coordinated improvements that actually end in a result that fixes more deficiencies that the problems and risks it adds. Electronic reporting of results will not fix anything with missing pollbooks. Although electronic pollbooks are a good idea, they do not eliminate paper copes, necessary as backup in case of power outages etc. They do not eliminate updating the voting lists with those that have voted absentee. We have a centralized voter registration system already, it needs improvement in several areas, including not mysteriously throwing voters off the list. Electronic returns can help but they still require care and verification and counting of the votes first. Yesterday, Alaska, in a very close Senate race still had at least 40,000 absentee votes to count (they don’t even know how many they have not counted). The nations largest jurisdiction, LA County, professionally managed, like all of California, still has another 20 days to finish counting absentee ballots which account for about 50% of their votes. Can this state of steady habits wait 24 hours for reasonably accurate results for offices that will be taken in January? The IRS gives us 3.5 months to do our taxes, yet many of us and many businesses can’t get it done in time!

And another large editorial. Electronic Vote Counting Was Coming Anyway, But Registrars Must Go

Once again, we favor regionalization and hope the next attempt at electronic reporting by the Secretary of the State is a winner – providing accurate, timely results, in a way that is workable for officials. We doubt that alone will get results as quickly as the Courant would like, yet provide the accuracy everyone needs, and the detailed statistics activists need to evaluate those results. We are not as enamored as the Courant of election integrity, accuracy, and claims of speed in other states.

More to come over the next few days. There is no need for a rust to judgement. The Legislature starts in January. We will not be able to accomplish much good, and could create havoc in attempting too much in a year, or two, or more.

2nd Graders Draw 77 Districts for Audit – Secretary Draws Races for Audit

Yesterday, four members from the Citizen Audit attended the random drawing of districts and races for the November 2014 post-election audit. The districts were drawn by 2nd graders of Gilead Elementary School in Hebron.

The students did a great job, replacing the usual contingent of adults from the Citizen Audit. And when we observe a local audit, we can claim in all honesty, “Somebody else must have drawn your town!”

There were some other changes and surprises as well:

Apparently based on urging from the Citizen Audit, Secretary Merrill drew the races for audit in public, providing for public observation of the integrity of the selection. Previously, in every even year election, those races were selected in secret.
Also we were pleased to learn that Secretary’s Office has taken steps to improve the integrity of the random drawing. Once again, based on requests and reports from the Citizen Audit.
Finally, both observers and election officials will have to scramble as the audit will need to be performed in just 6 days, compared to the usual 15-21 day period. The Secretary set that date based on a requirement in the law which was not always followed in the past

Here is the Press Release, with more details and the lists of selected towns. <read>

Let us act deliberatly to actually improve elections

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

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

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

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

Vote Count Accuracy More Important Than Speed

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

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

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

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

Luther Weeks, Glastonbury

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottom Line for now:

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

Election Wrap-Up: Got one right, one wrong, and “Who Could Have Imagined”

1. Can Hartford registrars do more than complain?

2. Don’t rely on all of our predictions.

3. We are not wrong all of the time

We Got It Right On Election Day Registration, “Who could have imagined?” We did. And we were not alone.

Can Hartford registrars do more than complain?

We have read several articles on the Hartford problem this year, here is an example: Official: Hartford Mixup A Failure Of ‘Election 101’ <read> To us its also a failure of leadership 101 and customer service 101.

When I am part of a system that makes an error, I apologize to the customers (voters). If I am part of the problem, I vow to fix the problem so it won’t happen again. In fact, I did both on election day when I lead Election Day Registration in my town. We served the voters but unnecessarily slowly, the system required them to use EDR when they did every thing right to be registered earlier.

The Courant and I disagree on how to fix the problems in Hartford. Letting the Town Council select registrars is not a cure. However, three people each fully charged with responsibility should not have missed this one.

At once it is less than and worse than Bridgeport in 2010. This had less impact on the election, less extended concern However, Bridgeport in 2010 was less of a leadership 101 failure. Bridgeport was caused by an initial miss-estimate of ballot orders, followed by a string of inadequate reactions that cascaded into a challenging, ineffectively handled situation.

Eating Some Tasty Crow. We got one wrong!

We predicted the Constitutional Amendment would pass “The Constitutional Amendment will pass with a moderate margin 10%-20%”. There are stories all over about why it did not for good and not so good reasons. We suspect that “Trust the Legislature to do the right thing” was not a winning argument. Yet also, many voters did not vote on the question. We suggest that is just another indication of the poor design of our lever-like paper ballots. Other states have much more readable ballots, making it easier to understand, and avoid missing questions.

Of course, that prediction was way back at the beginning of this month, two days before the election, but here is an old one:

We Got It Right On Election Day Registration, “Who could have imagined?” We did.

We long opposed the bill because it was a hokey, unproven way, of doing Election Day Registration, much more difficult and less likely to be successful that that implemented for years in other states. In fact, we opposed in it way back in 2010: Inadequate Election Day Registration Pilot Nixed we said:

We are conditionally for * Election Day Registration and opposed this inadequate bill in our testimony earlier this year. Our opposition was based on authorizing a pilot program with inadequate evaluation provisions, piloting an inadequate, disenfranchising voting method

We were not alone, others said at that time:

“What a nightmare it is for them, logistically, to implement this,” Sen. Daniel Debicella of Shelton, the ranking Republican senator on the Democrat-controlled Appropriations Committee, said.

Primaries are meant to allow political parties to resolve their respective nominations for offices, said Rep. Deborah Heinrich, D-Madison, adding she fears the bill would lead to a mass of last-minute registrations from voters interested only in casting a primary ballot, and not in remaining with their new party. “I don’t see that exactly as the system working,” she said.

Further we strongly opposed the Secretary of the State’s interpretation of the law, that does not allow those in line at 8:00pm to register and vote. With others, I lobbied unsuccessfully in the background that everyone in line at 8:00pm should be able to register and vote. I argued and got agreement from prominent civil right lawyers that it is a civil rights violation, just waiting to happen.

And it did happen. <read>

The registrar’s office was not staffed enough to handle the crowd of new voters, and the line was cut off at 8 p.m. at the Clerk’s office and anyone who was inside could continue registering and voting.

Not sure that they followed the Secretary’s directive that the whole process be complete for the citizen to be able to vote.

Citizens were denied the opportunity to vote, based on inadequate preparations by officials, unpredicted volumes of citizens wishing to legally participate in democracy, and by the 8:00pm cutoff.

******************
Update: 2/20/2015 Who Could Have Imagined…not even CTVotersCount

As noted above we imagined the problem in New Haven that would disenfranchise voters on election night 2015. Yet, we could not imagine the result would be praise and self-congratulations. The New Haven Register reports the press conference: State Praises New Haven’t same-day voter registration <read>

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill swung by City Hall Friday to deliver a citation honoring the fact that New Haven accommodated the most Election Day voter registrations out of any Connecticut municipality, totaling more than 600.

“Election Day registration is designed to increase voter participation and the last election was the state’s first big one,” Merrill said as she stood alongside Mayor Toni Harp, City Clerk Michael Smart and staffers from the registrar’s office. “More than 14,000 were able to vote who wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, because they had not been on the list for whatever reason, and chose to recognize their right to vote on Election Day.”

Merrill said New Haven’s final tally for same-day registrations was 616 but acknowledged that many were turned away once the 8 p.m. deadline hit. She said several proposals have been introduced in the state legislature that are aimed at speeding up the same-day registration process.

Final Warning: Don’t say “Who could have imagined?”

Many of our friends are on the other side of this vote. Some say the Legislature will hold hearings and do the right thing – even though they are upset at what the Legislature has done with election financing. I would support secure in-person early voting, but that is not on the ballot and unlikely to be the result of a “Yes” vote.

The Constitutional Amendment will pass with a moderate margin 10%-20%
The Legislature will hold hearings, and no matter what the testimony, they will enact no-excuse early voting, Governor Malloy will sign it into law
To great fanfare it will begin in November 2015.
Although it will slightly decrease turn-out, statics will be presented to say it actually increased turnout, maybe not in 2015, but soon
Sometime down the road, there will additional cases of alleged and proven votING fraud via absentee voting
Some will attribute it to the new law, some of those will say “Who could have imagined?”
In any case, the claim that any voting reform proposed will increase turnout will prevail

Make your choice on Tuesday.

The Perfect Storm meets illegal, disasterous voting

When hurricane Sandy hit the east coast, New Jersey exposed the vote and voters to additional risks.
New report from Rutgers:

The Perfect Storm: Voting In New Jersey In The Wake of Superstorm Sandy

When hurricane Sandy hit the east coast, New Jersey exposed the vote and voters to additional risks.

New report from Rutgers: The Perfect Storm: Voting In New Jersey In The Wake of Superstorm Sandy <read>

CONCLUSION

After Superstorm Sandy, there was no structure in place to make sure that emergency voting directives were followed. There was mass confusion among county officials and voters, alike. Emergency measures such as Internet and fax voting not only violated New Jersey law, but also left votes vulnerable to on-line hacking. Internet voting should never be permitted, especially in emergencies when governmental infrastructure is already compromised.

As the May 2014 National Climate Assessment issued by the U.S. government makes all too clear New Jersey is highly likely to be impacted
negatively by more Superstorm Sandy-like disasters in the near future. This means that it is critical for New Jersey to enact and implement emergency voting procedures that comply with existing election law, and that protect every vote. As such, those emergency measures should
not include Internet and fax voting as an option, under any circumstance.

The report is a quicker read than its size would indicate. It is packed with details that expose the risks of email and fax voting.