CTVotersCount.org

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”.

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>