Vote-by-mail cheaper, but advocates have concerns

CTVotersCount is opposed to expansion of main-in-voting including no-excuse absentee voting, primarily for reasons of security and secondarily because it does not deliver on its promise of increased participation. Today we highlight a comprehensive article covering why it tends to be popular and pleasing to election officials in California, but tends to reduce turnout and raises a variety of concerns from advocates.

Today we highlight a comprehensive article covering why vote-by-mail tends to be popular and pleasing to election officials in California, but tends to reduce turnout and raises a variety of concerns from advocates: Cheaper, popular mail-in ballots worry critics <read>

Here are some of the highlights of the article, for those who support expanded mail-in voting for Connecticut, I suggest reading the entire article and considering all the implications:

The increasing shift to vote-by-mail ballots is a positive sign for many election officials. They say it increases voter turnout and is considerably cheaper than the cost counties pay for regular voters. But critics argue the true cost of the system may be higher than reported by its boosters. They also say election officials need to take a closer look at the social costs, such as how the mail-in system affects homeless voter…

Kim Alexander, founder of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit based in Sacramento that encourages voter participation, said that despite its popularity, not enough is known about the effectiveness of mail-in voting. “How many ballots are going out, how many are coming back, how much extra work are they creating for election officials?” Alexander asked.

The vote-by-mail system is supposed to make it easier on election departments by allowing voters to turn in their ballots before Election Day, but a large number of vote-by-mail voters turn in their ballots at the last minute.

In San Francisco, 87,747 ballots were returned before Election Day, and 56,881 were returned on Election Day. In Alameda County, 150,000 vote-by-mail ballots were returned before Election Day and 90,000 on Election Day, according to election officials.

“It takes more time for us to process the ones that come in on Election Day – that just adds to our workload,” said Dave Macdonald, registrar of Alameda County, where the vote-by-mail turnout was more than twice as high as at the polls. “We had a lot of staff after Election Day to process all the vote-by-mail ballots.”…

In a 2005 survey by the California Voter Foundation, 44 percent of non-voters said they were registered to vote – but not at their current address. About one in four said they were eligible but unregistered because they moved around so much that it was difficult to stay registered.

And a report [PDF] published by the Colorado secretary of state found that minorities, young people, singles and divorced people move at significantly above-average rates. Twenty-one percent of people with incomes under $25,000 change residences within one year, compared to 12 percent of people over $100,000. Renters are three times more likely to move.

(UPDATE: A study of vote-by-mail in three California counties found that turnout decreases in presidential and gubernatorial elections but increases in local special elections.)

A Pew Center on the States study [PDF] found that mandatory vote-by-mail systems decrease the odds of someone voting by 13.2 percent, with negative effects on the turnout of urban and minority populations…

“We’re a junk mail society,” he said. “A large percentage of voters don’t realize when it first comes that it’s actually the ballot – especially when every campaign makes it look like the mailers are their official ballots.”

In addition to those hundreds of ballots failing to connect with voters, there’s the issue of vote-by-mail voters – mostly college students in the case of Yolo County – picking up their vote-by-mail ballot from their former residence in a different county and trying to drop it off in Yolo County, where they now live and go to school. Those ballots will not be counted, Stanionis said. And in the Nov. 2 election in his county, there were 58 of those.

Other issues include ballots arriving after Election Day. Out of the 30,000 vote-by-mail ballots in this past Nov. 2 election, the majority were dropped off before Election Day and 4,000 were dropped off on Election Day. But about 1,000 arrived too late.

“Most of those that arrived late are people who put them in a mailbox on Election Day, thinking it was the postmark date,” said Stanionis…

In Riverside County during the June primary, as many as 12,500 ballots arrived too late and were not counted because of communication problems between election officials and the post office, according to news reports. In San Francisco in the June election, a private company that the city’s election department contracted to send out the ballots mailed out thousands of duplicate ballots and ballots with the wrong names.

A current example in Georgia of some absentee ballot fraud allegations: Voting Irregularities Lead To Ten Arrests In South Georgia <read>

Ten people have been arrested in South Georgia following a 5-month investigation into voter fraud. They’re accused of illegally helping people vote by absentee ballot…Those arrested face felony charges for illegally possessing ballots and violating voting procedure. GBI officials say more arrests could be made and more charges filed.

Guest Post: Discrepancies in vote counts

The SOTS [Secretary of the State’s] reporting of election results appears to have improved since 2008. That year, many votes on the Working Families Party line went unreported or were lumped in with the counts on the Democratic line…

However, the SOTS or the town officials seem to have overlooked some votes for Independent gubernatorial candidate Tom Marsh: in Bozrah and Shelton, the SOTS reports 0 votes while the Hartford Courant reports 27 and 198 respectively.

[CTVotersCount applauds David Bedell for his extensive efforts in checking results and encourage officials to correct the vote counts reported as official by the Secretary of the State and for his posting his report here. It is important that all votes be accurately reported for third parties because that is the basis for ballot access in future elections.]

This year, after some initial confusion over some towns (e.g., East Windsor), the WFP results are now on the SOTS website; at least, there are no zeros in the WFP column. However, the SOTS or the town officials seem to have overlooked some votes for Independent gubernatorial candidate Tom Marsh: in Bozrah and Shelton, the SOTS reports 0 votes while the Hartford Courant reports 27 and 198 respectively.

[Some examples sent David sent earlier – Editor]

Shelton Votes For Governor

There appears to be an error in the election results for Governor published by the SOTS. For the town of Shelton, SOTS reports 0 votes for Tom Marsh (Independent). But the Shelton Town Clerk reports 198 votes for Marsh (see email pasted below):

—————————————-
> From: m.domorod@cityofshelton.org
> To: dbedellgreen@hotmail.com
> Subject: RE: omitted election results for Shelton
> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:22:53 -0500
>
>
>
> Mr. Bedell,
>
> Tom Marsh received the following votes in the City of Shelton:
>
> Districts 1 & 2 = 59 votes; Districts 3,4,5 & 6= 139 votes ; total of 198
> votes
>
>
> Margaret Domorod
> City/Town Clerk

Darien Votes for Comptroller

There appears to be an error in the election results for Comptroller published by the SOTS. For the town of Darien, SOTS reports 0 votes for Joshua Katz (Libertarian) and 0 votes for Hugh Dolan (Independent). But the Darien Town Clerk reports 66 votes for Joshua Katz and 70 votes for Hugh Dolan (see email pasted below):

—————————————-
> From: DRajczewski@darienct.gov
> To: dbedellgreen@hotmail.com
> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:50:48 -0500
> Subject: RE: omitted election results for Darien
>
> Mr. Katz received 66 votes and Mr. Dolan received 70 votes.

Rep Spallone named Deputy Secretary of the State

Reports over the weekend said that Rep Spall0ne had been offered the job. Now it is official.

Reports over the weekend said that Rep Spall0ne had been offered the job. Now it is official. Via the Middletown Press <read>

“Jamie and I have formed a strong partnership over the many years we have worked together to pass numerous laws to strengthen the integrity of our elections and open up our democratic process. I’m thrilled to be able to continue this partnership, and I no doubt will be relying on Jamie’s intellect and experience as we set out to reform our election laws and improve services for the businesses who register with our state,” said Secretary-elect Merrill at a news conference at the Legislative Office Building to introduce Spallone as Deputy Secretary of the State.

James Spallone was first elected to the Connecticut General Assembly in 2000, and has been re-elected five times. He represents the 36th House District, comprising the towns of Chester, Deep River, Essex and Haddam. Since 2009, Spallone has served as co-chair of the legislature’s Committee on Government Administration and Elections (GAE), overseeing all issues related to elections, campaign finance reform, ethics, freedom of information and government contracting.

“I am very happy to be joining our new Secretary of the State and honored that she has chosen me to fill this key position in her administration,” said Representative Spallone. “Clearly, the 2010 election showed us that we have more work to do to improve the way our elections are run in Connecticut. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the General Assembly and local election officials throughout the state to reform our election process. As someone who has operated my own law practice and represented small businesses, I also look forward to helping entrepreneurs in Connecticut and working with the Malloy administration to improve the business climate in our state.”

I expect he will also continue to work with, and look forward to working with election integrity advocates as well.

NY Judiciary: Answers more important that Accurate Answers

“New York’s audit laws require a further hand count of paper ballots, accepting the machine results and declaring a winner outweigh the public’s right to know who really won the election”

Sadly, after three years and six major elections Connecticut has none of the three voting integrity items Bo recommends for New York.

Bo Lipari summarizes the situation in New York in his blog post: Count The Paper <read>

In the first test case of how we verify election results using New York’s new paper ballots, the State Judiciary is in the process of setting an egregious precedent – Judges are free to nullify audits and recounts in the interests of having a quick decision. In Nassau County’s contested 7th Senate District (SD7) race, two State Courts that have heard the case to date have made very bad decisions. Ruling that even if New York’s audit laws require a further hand count of paper ballots, accepting the machine results and declaring a winner outweigh the public’s right to know who really won the election…

This demonstrates something I’ve been saying for a long time – getting new systems and paper ballots was only the first step towards verifiable elections. Now that we have the paper ballots, we’ve got to work on using them correctly. And that means knowing when we need to count them. In New York State, that means we citizens will have to push for changes to New York’s election law that allow recounts when warranted, making them more specific and subsequently less subject to judicial fiat. Here’s three changes we New Yorkers could make to the law that would get us a lot closer to where we need to be: [Risk-limiting audits, audits can escalate to change the result, and recounts on close elections]

Sadly, after three years and six major elections Connecticut has none of the three voting integrity items Bo recommends for New York. We do have a recanvass which is useful in moderately close elections, but insufficient in really close ones. As we have said in our Ten Myths:

Myth #9 – If there is ever a concern we can always count the paper.

CT Post: Recount shows widespread miscalculations

Given the circumstances I am not surprised that the Coalition found such differences. However, understanding how it happened does not justify complacency, it calls for appropriate action. Connecticut voters deserve a more accurate and resilient system. Democracy requires it.

Last week the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition completed the recount of all ballots in Bridgeport in conjunction with the Connecticut Post Newspaper, with the cooperation of the City of Bridgeport and its election officials.

Here are links to the CTPost’s coverage today, followed by my summary opinion:

Lead story: Recount shows widespread miscalculations <read>

If you cast a photocopied ballot in last month’s gubernatorial election in Bridgeport, there’s a 1 in 4 chance your vote was miscounted.

How we counted: How the recount was conducted <read>

How election day went: Diaries tell of election chaos <read>

Results in more detail: Bridgeport election recount – The totals <read>

Columnist Opinion: Time for Bridgeport’s Democratic registrar of voters to go <read>

An editorial: Voting process in need of reform <read>

Officials in Bridgeport and in Hartford need to take a look at the process. For one thing, the secretary of the state should have the authority to intervene in the case of, say, a municipality that has ordered an obviously inadequate number of ballots.

Wading through the bags of ballots and talking with the officials involved also hammered home the point that an election is a human endeavor, a relatively complex exercise run by people who are well-intentioned but just as susceptible to error, fatigue, frustration and anger as any of the rest of us.

In an ideal world, an election being the cornerstone of our way of doing things, it should be carried out with a nonpartisan professional at the helm and not left the sole responsibility of party loyalists like registrars of voters.

My Summary Opinion

I add my thanks to everyone involved: The Connecticut Post for its leadership, initiative, and support of the recount; the City of Bridgeport, especially the election officials for their open and friendly cooperation; the other Coalition members: The Connecticut League of Women Voters, Connecticut Common Cause, and The Connecticut Citizens Action Group; and most of all the fifty-six (56) citizens committed to democracy who volunteered over 115 full days to the project, on short notice, many taking 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 full days and more to contribute to this effort.

Time for Bridgeport’s Democratic registrar of voters to go

CTVotersCount – Brief Hiatus

I will be taking a brief hiatus from posting at CTVotersCount. We will be very busy counting some ballots in Bridgeport

I will be taking a brief hiatus from posting at CTVotersCount. We will be very busy counting some ballots in Bridgeport, see the CTPost article: City agrees to unseal ballots for recount by Post, citizen groups <read>

BRIDGEPORT — City officials have agreed to unseal ballots cast in the governor’s race and make them available for a recount beginning Monday by the Connecticut Post and three nonpartisan citizen groups…

A recount “will answer the questions that a lot of people are asking,” said Luther Weeks, executive director of CTVotersCount.org and the CT Citizen Election Audit Coalition. “It will resolve those questions.”

Representatives from Hearst Connecticut Media, which owns the Connecticut Post, Weeks and Cheryl Dunson from the League of Women Voters of Connecticut will meet with city officials Tuesday to work out the logistics of the ballot recount.

Bysiewicz: Secretary of the State powerless to enforce election laws, count ballots

We agree with Secretary Bysiewicz that we cannot look to her to deliver on voting integrity. We also cannot rely on each and every one of the 339 elected registrars for voting integrity.

We caution agains patchwork solutions. The problem goes well beyond the number of ballots printed; voting integrity and confidence call for a much broader study and action than proposed by the current Secretary

Hartford Courant op-ed by Susan Bysiewicz, Secretary of the State: Getting Vote Right Takes Time, Money <read>

In Connecticut, our Constitution and subsequent laws dictate that elections are the province of local government. So, the legal responsibility for carrying out elections falls squarely on the shoulders of our 169 municipalities. From large cities to tiny towns, all bear the same legal responsibility to plan for and execute our elections.

The secretary of the state’s office provides legal advice and guidance to cities and towns on how to interpret federal and state election mandates, and how those laws should be implemented. Ultimately, however, it is the democratically-elected, local registrars of voters who are empowered to make decisions about how elections are run. The secretary of the state has no legal authority to compel each town to follow the law, and the power to enforce election laws resides with the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

We agree with Secretary Bysiewicz that we cannot look to her to deliver on voting integrity. Unfortunately what happened in Bridgeport, incidents across Connecticut, and the Coalition Audit Reports demonstrate that we also cannot rely on each and every one of the 339 elected registrars for voting integrity. Our best hope for integrity and confidence is the people and the media utilizing the Freedom Of Information Act, followed by future leadership by the next Secretary of the State and and action by the next Legislature.

We caution against patchwork solutions. The problem goes well beyond the number of ballots printed; voting integrity and confidence call for a much broader study and action than proposed by the current Secretary in this op-ed:

We must make sure that what happened in Bridgeport never happens again. I urge the General Assembly to pass and Governor-elect Malloy to sign a measure ensuring that a sufficient number of ballots are provided for every registered voter in Connecticut.

There are several problems associated with our election system, not the least of which is the city by city, town by town, variations in following unenforceable regulations and procedures promulgated by the Secretary along with unreliable election accounting. Reactive, patchwork thinking, lack of transparency, and resistance to change is what got us here in the first place. As we said in our recent editorial: Understand all the Symptoms, Explore the Options, Then Act

Update: CTPost article presents history of Connecticut law and how we got here and how other states determine the number of ballots to print: Bridgeport voting mess puts focus on local control of elections <read>

Bridgeport hearing expose issues beyond ballot shortages

“Training was not evident. Professionalism was not evident,”

Update: OnlyInBridgeport video of former GAE Chair, Rep Chris Caruso. Articulates the problems, possible solutions, and obstacles, including impeachment

Hartford Courant, AP coverage <read>

when she arrived at her polling place around 1:15 p.m., she found poll workers yelling at one another. She said she was handed a ballot that looked like a photocopy without any explanation.

“It made me feel very uneasy. Training was not evident. Professionalism was not evident,” she said.

Representative Chris Caruso, former Chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee once characterized our voting system as the “Wild West” was there:

State Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, was among those who called for the resignation of Sandi Ayala, the city’s Democratic registrar of voters…

Caruso said he believes many voters were disenfranchised on Election Day, discouraged from voting because they had to wait two or three hours for a ballot. He called on the U.S. Attorney to investigate what happened in Bridgeport and whether any criminal activity took place. A similar request was made by the state Republicans.

Some residents said they were embarrassed by the election fiasco, saying it’s the latest black eye for the city that has been besieged over the years by budget problems and a former mayor who went to prison on corruption charges.

Yet others spoke up for the registrars, saying they were overworked on Election Day, didn’t have enough help and face difficulty finding competent people to work at the polls once a year.

Update: More reporting from CTNewsJunkie <read>

Update: OnlyInBridgeport video of former GAE Chair, Rep Chris Caruso. Articulates the problems, possible solutions, and obstacles, including impeachment <view>

74 Districts in 55 towns chosen for audit. And the surprises just keep coming.

At the drawing the Secretary announced an agreement with the Bridgeport Registrars that the 12 districts with the copied, hand counted, ballots would be voluntarily audited with all the ballots for the race for Governor counted. Surprise Surprise! It seems that not everyone in Bridgeport government agreed to the agreement

Yesterday, the Secretary of the State with the assistance of members of the Connecticut Citizen Audit Coalition chose 74 districts. This is the 1st drawing I have not attended since they started in August 2007, but the Coalition including CTVotersCount was well represented.

We had understood from Deputy Secretary Mara that the registrars would have until 12/1 to complete the audits, so we were surprised when the press release said they had to be complete by next Monday 11/22. The law says they must be complete two days before certification which is next Wednesday, although we recall past audits that went beyond. In any case, we and the registrars are all scrambling, especially since the drawing was four or five days later than usual. Hard for us to fault the registrars for not complying with the Secretary of the State’s procedures which require a three day public notice before the audits occur.

The surprises just keep coming!

Bridgeport rejects ballot recount

HARTFORD — Bridgeport officials, citing a lack of authority for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, have rejected a request to recount ballots in the 12 city voting precincts that were kept open an extra two hours on Election Day.

Bysiewicz’s office said Arthur C. Laske III, deputy city attorney, called Monday afternoon to announce that the city would not be redoing the count that they originally performed in the days after the Nov. 2 election.

Laske’s call occurred hours after a Bysiewicz news conference announcing that Bridgeport’s voting registrars agreed to perform an additional review of the ballots as part of a routine statewide recount of totals in 74 polling precincts.

We would like to say more, but we have audit observers to schedule.

Update from CTNewsJunkie <read>

In a joint statement Bridgeport Attorney Mark Anastasi and Deputy City Attorney Arthur Laske said Anastasi spoke with an attorney in the elections division of Bysiewicz’s office Monday afternoon to tell them “no one in the city had agreed to such a recount.“

Bysiewicz’s office has no legal authority to force them to do a recount, but those polling places were left out of the random drawing for the statewide audit of 74 polling places.

“It seems the Secretary was mistaken both as to whom her office spoke with from the City of Bridgeport and what was said on Monday,” Anastasi and Laske said. “The Bridgeport Registrars of Voters had preliminary discussions with Deputy Secretary of the State Leslie Mara about this subject, but neither Registrar agreed to the proposal or received a promised follow-up call about the proposal.”

While a voluntary audit may ensure confidence in the results of the governor’s race, Anatasi and Laske said “The City can find no legal authority which either requires or even allows the State or the City to conduct such a recount.”

“We believe that the Secretary of the State is equally aware of this absence of legal authority,” the two attorney’s said.

Courant Editorial: “State Must Review Ballot Blunders” – We agree and disagree

We note that there are two registrars in Bridgeport, elected to use their two eyes and two brains to represent opposing interests toward voting integrity and access. Today, would the Courant maintain or reconsider its past editorial position proposing a single registrar per town, not in the interest of integrity, but in the interest of saving money?

Courant Editorial: State Must Review Ballot Blunders <read>

There are areas where we agree and disagree with the Courant:

Hartford Courant: “By all means, Gov. M. Jodi Rell should assemble a bipartisan panel to review Bridgeport’s ballot blunders — with an eye to preventing mistakes, not to casting suspicion on the outcome of the Nov. 2 governor’s election, the closest in 56 years.

Legislative leaders ought to have a say in the panel’s makeup, since they’ll have a say in the remedies.”

We agree with appointing a group to study our current election system and recommend solutions. The Legislature obviously should be involved. We are less confident that the lame duck Governor should appoint the panel. There should be a strong emphasis on addressing the whole system of election administration in Connecticut. As we said two days ago, Editorial: Understand all the Symptoms, “Explore the Options, Then Act”

CTVotersCount: “Editorials and legislators are already reacting and taking sides to solve the “ballot printing” problem. It is critical to understand the entire scope of issues and inadequacies in all aspects of the election process; then review all the options, look for local best practices in Connecticut and explore what other states do well; then and only then develop a comprehensive cure. This is the common sense way to proceed, unfortunately it is hard work from start to implementation. Otherwise we are destined to react to one problem at a time, with one expensive, disruptive band-aid after another.

In its last paragraph, the Courant hits the nail on the head:

Hartford Courant: “State leaders have to do better at ensuring competently run elections in towns and cities at risk of being overwhelmed by the task.”

And the Courant is correct in recommending a second set of eyes:

Hartford Courant: “Somewhere in the process, probably in the secretary of the state’s office, a second set of eyes should check the number of ballots ordered, at the least.”

We would go further with a recommendation that almost everything to do with election management requires a second set of eyes, usually with opposing interests: Ordering ballots, reviewing petitions, voter registrations, ballot observation and transport, when ballots are counted by hand, and every step of the way in accumulating vote totals across the state.

We note that there are two registrars in Bridgeport, elected to use their two eyes and two brains to represent opposing interests toward voting integrity and access. Today, would the Courant maintain or reconsider its past editorial position proposing a single registrar per town, not in the interest of integrity, but in the interest of saving money? See our post: Downsizing Newspaper Recommends Downsizing Registrars. As we said then:

CTVotersCount: “Most of us would agree that Central Connecticut needs more than one daily newspaper. If there was any doubt it certainly was erased this week. On Monday the “New” Hartford Courant came out with its latest and most drastic downsizing. On Tuesday an editorial suggesting among other things that we should have a single elected registrar per municipality. However, downsizing to a single registrar will serve democracy no better than the continuous downsizing of the Courant…

For a city the size of Hartford there should be no problem having three registrars and the costs should be minimal. Each city sets the budget, salary, hours, benefits, and staffing of their Registrars Of Voters Office. Hartford could simply cut staffing and perhaps cut registrars’ hours or salary when three are elected to do the job of two. Just cutting a full time staff position would go a long way toward reducing most of the $200,000…

In Connecticut, perhaps electing two official registrars paid a small stipend to provide a check and balance over a professional civil service chief election official would provide the best of both worlds and would work for large cities. This would not work for small towns – a single chief election official and staff would need to serve several small towns – a change that would not easily be accepted in New England.

What clearly won’t work is half baked solutions.”