Editorial: Understand all the Symptoms, Explore the Options, Then Act

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.

Background: Reacting to one symptom at a time

The problems in Bridgeport stem directly from a series of errors and faults. The specific details will likely come out in calmer times. They include a combination of:

Ordering an unjustifiably low number of ballots based on past history
No review of that order in the light of Obama’s visit and the predicted closeness of the election
Lack of awareness in polls and/or city hall of the pending lack of ballots
Lack of timely reaction to the pending and actual lack of ballots
Lack of detailed standards for handling pending and actual lack of ballots

Solutions also revolve around ballot printing. The obvious solutions to the “ballot printing” problem:

Legislating enough ballots for all voters plus some spares
Not leaving ballot printing to the judgment of local officials
Legislating a minimum based on a formula based on past similar elections
Formal procedures to initiate, obtain, and protect emergency ballots
State funding of ballot printing

Editorials and legislators are already reacting and taking sides e.g. <Editorial NH Register> <AP: Lawmakers will try to fix ballot problems>. We point out that printing 100% of ballots would average on the order of $500,000 a year over printing enough for expected voters plus a generous margin, while post-election audits average on the order of $120,000 per year.

We are seeing several even more wide ranging reactions triggered by the problem with ballots. They include changing from optical scan to more risky, unproven, and expensive solutions: Touch Screens (DREs) are expensive, lead to long lines, unauditable, risky, and expensive. Internet voting is unproven, expensive, unauditable, risky and expensive. Others include making the Secretary of the State an appointed official.

Editorial: Understand All The Symptoms, Explore Options, Then Act

Ballot printing is only one weakness in the current system. Other major weaknesses include, but are no means limited to:

Inadequate ballot security and chain of custody
Lack of standards and uniformity in all aspects of election management, especially ballot security, post-election audits, and recanvasses.
Inaccurate, unreliable, non-transparent accumulation of vote totals for certification which also are critical to determine recanvass levels, and ballot access for third parties
Inadequate training of and for election officials at all levels
Lack of oversight and inspection of compliance in all areas including, election management, ballot security, post-election audits, and vote accounting
Ambiguous, incomplete, hard to comprehend manuals, procedures and directives
Our laws have not been fully updated to reflect optical scanning and paper ballots. Overall there is ambiguity between the roles and responsibilities of the Secretary of the State, Elections Enforcement, and the 339 registrars of voters

After the 2007 election, in early 2008 the General Administration and Elections Committee of the Legislature held five public hearings, one in each of our Congressional districts to understand issues with the first optical scan election. Yet little has changed. Perhaps it is time for more hearings covering a range of issues surrounding voting in Connecticut – not just in every district but also multiple hearings focused on various areas of election management.

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 through implementation.

Otherwise we are destined to react to one problem at a time, with one expensive, disruptive band-aid after another – following a series of unnecessary election controversies.

Bridgeport Newspaper up too late? Listening to voting vendor, suggests unsafe sophisticated voting system to Connecticut

What happened in D.C. in an Internet voting test was largely a result of very very poor security on the voting system and the D.C. Internet itself. An electronic version of the incompetence exposed in Bridgeport…what makes anyone think they can do better with a system that is scientifically proven risky and requires high technical expertise and flawless oversight just to make it moderately safe, when they cannot even work the current system?

CTPost article posted last night at 11:35 pm: Toward an end to long lines at the polls, miscounts and other election fouls <read>

Update: Stamford Advocate: UConn Professor suggests ATMs would be different but voters still need paper records. Legislator says he fought eliminating lever machines and now favors appointing the Secretary of the State. Election snafus may tarnish Bysiewicz’s stature <read> See after CTPost.

Connecticut Post

Here is their case:

We need a better method of casting our votes. Our system is antiquated. All of these optical scanners, which resemble clunky first-generation fax machines, are only slight improvement over the old lever voting machines. In Connecticut, you can pay your property tax bills on line, purchase beach stickers for your vehicle, and trawl through your kids’ test scores and attendance records at school. You can even pay your federal taxes this way, too. Why can’t you register to vote and cast your ballot online? The time is now for Internet voting. Seventy-seven percent of us have Internet access, and the figure is constantly climbing. Those who don’t have it at home can either access it at work or a library.

Thirty-three states permitted some form of Internet voting this electoral season. The Land of Steady Habits, as we are all aware, is not one of those states.

We point out that NONE of those states as far as we know are doing much other than a pilot for military and overseas voters under an unfortunate provision of an otherwise laudable Military and Overseas Voters Empowerment Act (MOVE) well implemented by Connecticut. As we have characterized this before, Damn the science, Damn the integrity, If it feels good do it.

And where does the paper go for unbiased information?

Degregorio is director of elections for Every Vote Counts, a California-based Internet voting firm. “Internet voting is being used every single day as it has been for the past 10 years, in the private sector,” Degregorio says. “Many boards of directors, unions use it for official purposes to elect their leaders, trustees and pension plan administrators. It’s been this way for the past 10 years,” says Paul for the past Security was on the minds of those overseeing Washington, D.C.’s election as it launched a pilot project to test the integrity of its new voting system for collecting overseas and military absentee ballots. The result? Within hours, computer students at the University of Michigan and their professors hacked into the system. The firm that developed Washington, D.C.’s Internet voting for overseas and military absentee balloting, is an “inexperienced outfit,” Degregorio says, adding that it used a flawed and “sloppy source code.”

As CTVotersCount readers are aware, computer scientists, security experts, and voting integrity advocates have long opposed Internet voting based on the theoretical impossibility of making it safe. As was demonstrated dramatically in the rapid, successful attack on the Washington D.C. test system by professors and students from the University of Michigan, followed by expert testimony regarding the general barriers to developing a successful system: Internet Voting Faces The Music: Hats off to D.C. and Michigan.

And the CTPost’s detailed rebuttal of the testimony in D.C.:

Should the District of Columbia’s experience discourage us from pursuing Internet voting as a replacement for the system we have? Absolutely not.

I have posted a short comment on the article to help edify the Post and the public:

The Help America Vote act was also designed to increase voting integrity. The safest most reliable means under HAVA is paper ballots and optical scanning. But that breaks down with poor chain of custody with a lack of security and not following election procedures.

Electronic voting over the Internet does not have the paper backup. No reputable computer scientist or security expert supports it, nobody has developed a safe system of Internet voting…and scientists have so far proven it would be impossible to do that.

What happened in D.C. in an Internet voting test was largely a result of very very poor security on the voting system and the D.C. Internet itself. An electronic version of the incompetence exposed in Bridgeport…what makes anyone think they can do better with a system that is scientifically proven risky and requires high technical expertise and flawless oversight just to make it moderately save[safe*], when they cannot even work the current system?

Also you have extensively quoted a voting system vendor without balancing information from mainstream experts who oppose Internet voting. Would you go to Blackwater to get advice on choosing between the alternatives of going to war vs. negotiation?

For more on the D.C. test and related testimony by scientists etc. see: https://www.ctvoterscount.org/internet-voting-faces-the-music-hats-off-to-d-c-and-michigan/

Luther Weeks
CTVotersCount.org

PS: I am certainly not defending the current state of voting laws and process in Connecticut.

(*) Maybe I have been up too late the last two days observing recanvasses! As I have said before, I am human, far from perfect, and warn that I have served as an election official.

Stamford Advicate

Professor said ATMs would have eliminated these problems but voters need paper:

If Bysiewicz had purchased ATM-style machines after the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, instead of the scanning technology, the Bridgeport controversy might have been avoided, he said.

“But even those ATM-like machines have problems,” Moscardelli said. “Voters prefer to have some way of verifying the vote on paper.”

Legislator suggests appointing SOTS and that he was against optical scan.

McKinney remembered arguing with Bysiewicz over the HAVA voting systems. During the process of obtaining the equipment, Bysiewicz had to rebid the contract.

“I spent a year or two fighting the optical scanners,” he recalled. “We publicly cautioned her, warning that just because they weren’t manufacturing the old lever voting machines anymore, maybe we could bring some manufacturing back to our state, maybe to Bridgeport. She was more anxious to get the scanners.”

…McKinney said the Election Day debacle in Bridgeport may rekindle the issue of voting technology. He wonders if the secretary of the state, which was established in 1639, is an outdated job.

“The reality is she’s an extraordinarily ambitious politician who used her office as secretary of the state for higher office when she simply should have been doing her job,” McKinney said.

“I think her abject failure to do her job properly leads me to wonder whether or not we should elect the secretary of the state or have it as a position appointed by the governor,” he said. “If it’s appointed, we’re much less likely to have someone there looking for higher office.”

Connecticut Governor Race: Integrity Issues

From the details we have so far, we can start our list of issues with the situation in Bridgeport. We continue our issues with election integrity in Connecticut, especially in close elections.

Initial assessment…to be updated and subject to further editing. 4:00pm – extensive editing.

Yesterday as the ballot issues developed in Bridgeport, I was at work as a central count absentee ballot moderator in Vernon, CT. Sometime during the evening we heard some sketchy details about what happened. Our focus was on getting our count complete. After we were done I listened to more sketchy details along with some election results, as I waited in the registrars office for my turn to have our results checked and be submitted to contribute to Vernon’s totals – a few more Bridgeport details emerged. The complexity of the election required extra time and care to calculate the results in each district, especially even the relatively small number of hand counted ballots. There were may races and most had cross-endorsed, “fusion” voting candidates. That also required extra time and extra care reviewing and accumulating results for all the districts.

At this point 10:00am , reading several news reports, some of the details are still sketchy and the initial election results are yet to be fully reported. According to the Hartford Courant at this point, with 90% of the districts reporting, Tom Foley-R leads Dan Malloy-D by a bit over 11,000 votes, yet the Courant reports Bridgeport unofficially as adding enough to give Malloy about a 1,500 vote lead. Yet, that still leaves a large number of other districts unaccounted for, perhaps most notably, Danbury where Foley’s running mate, Mark Boughton is Mayor.

Yet, from the details we have so far, we can start our list of issues with the situation in Bridgeport:

An annoying lack of ballots. Like many municipalities in this election, Bridgeport, most notably the February 2008 Presidential Primary. We don’t know why Bridgeport did not print enough ballots: inaccurate calculations, inaccurate projections/guesstimates, false economy, or local politics? The logistics is complicated by having ten different ballot formats covering the 25 polling districts.
Usually just an annoyance to the public. Faced with a shortage of ballots, registrars make paper copies of ballots which can be counted by hand, but not our scanners. This annoys voters who would rather vote on an official, scanned ballot. This annoys the public because they suspect skulduggery and want the results quickly.
And a concern to voting integrity advocates. This concerns voting integrity advocates like CTVotersCount because we prefer the dual safety of optical scanners and paper ballots. In addition, Connecticut officials have a poor track record in counting complicated ballots, especially those with cross-endorsed candidates <here> and <here> in audits, when they are well rested and under observation, with optical scanner results to compare with their counts! Unfortunately, we have no faith, coupled with no evidence to provide assurance that hand counts late at night by tired officials are close to accurate – hand counted ballots are never audited in Connecticut. We do have evidence that officials do not always count accurately in the audits, and many claims by officials that they are unable to accurately count paper ballots.
Becomes an issue of voter disenfranchisement. Unlike other municipalities that have faced the same problem, Bridgeport did not react quickly enough. Apparently from the reports (sketchy) the ballots were not copied to be available in time to prevent some districts from running out. Apparently voters were turned away or quit waiting. Why copies were not available in time is worth understanding. It lead to these real issues of disenfranchisement.
Judge steps in to solve disenfranchisement, resulting in additional serious fairness issues. The polls were mandated to be open an extra two hours, but the voting was not limited to those in line by 8:00pm. Voters were robo-called by the town to explain that the polls would be open to 10:00pm. This would certainly mitigate the disenfranchisement problem, but likely cause more voters to vote than originally would have. Tentative results were available before that time showing that Malloy and Congressional candidate Jim Himes, both Democrates were behind. With Bridgeport highly Democratic an opportunity was open for voters to know that their votes might well change the result. Clearly if Malloy wins the election, it will be up to the courts to sort out how to determine how Connecticut’s next governor is chosen.

We continue our issues with election integrity in Connecticut, especially in close elections:

Connecticut calls for a close vote recanvass in very close elections. It is not a recount: We have pointed out recanvasses inadequacies for sufficient accuracy and transparency for very close elections.
Even a recanvass calls for a very close vote: The law calls for a recanvass when the difference is 0.5%, but a maximum of 2000 votes, which amounts to a bit less than 0.2% (correction, earlier version said .02% — no consolation to admit that I am human and an election official) in this race. If Malloy gains just 500 more votes or Foley gains 3,500 more there will be not be a recanvass.
Connecticut has an error prone, difficult to verify way of accumulating votes. We use a three step process of manual counting and transcription to report summary results. In 2008, in just one municipality, a large error was included in statewide results, several times greater than the 2000 vote limit for recanvasses. So, just one error in initial reporting could easily avoid a critical recanvass, and the opportunity for a subsequent court ordered recount — and result in the incorrect winner declared.
Another “opportunity” for skulduggery hidden as incompetence: Knowing all the other reports, just one “innocent” transposition in one result not yet reported could prevent a recanvass for an apparent winner or cause one for an apparent looser. Or holding back on correcting a discovered error could also provide the same opportunity.

Update 11:31 Malloy now leads by 631 votes with 692 of 751 districts reporting, Danbury still not reported. (These are AP results, not the official results from the Secretary of the State’s Office.

Update: 2:00: Bysiewicz announces Malloy is the winner and no “recount”, without complete results. Margin sits at about 3000 votes about 1000 from recanvass. <read>

Dannel Malloy has won the election for governor, and there will be no statewide recount, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz announced this afternoon.

Even though votes in the governor’s race were still being counted, both Democrat Dan Malloy and Republican Tom Foley were inching closer to declaring victory Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said if there is a recount, it could be weeks before the winner is known.

We point out:

We don’t have a recount but a recanvass, by law, even our Secretary of the State is usually imprecise on that
When all the votes are officially reported the winner might well change and we could easily be in recanvass territory
By law the recanvass must be completed within five business days from the election. This is the first we have heard from the Secretary that she predicts such cannot be accomplished. Several recanvasses in the 2nd congressional district, such as 2006, were completed within the law

Also listening and calling in to the Colin McEnroe show with guest, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and other callers including candidate Tom Foley:

The Secretary points out the advantage of having both a Democratic and Republican registrar watching out for voters interests in Bridgeport. Later the Secretary talked about discussions in the Legislature toward making registrars single non-elected officials, and then requiring their certification.
Tom Foley was not comfortable with the announcement of the winner without official results, he is anxious to reconcile results with the Secretary’s office.
[In a similar vein, we are also working to reconcile the Audit Coalition Post-Election Audit Results of the August Primary with the Official UConn report which has been forwarded to us by the Secretary of the State’s Office. The UConn report shows much less differences than the Coalition report. It has yet to be published on the UConn site.]
I did get to ask the Secretary to reconcile her statements in the Courant that the recanvass would take several weeks, with the law and past experience. She did agree that it would and must be completed by next Tuesday. We both agree if subsequent to the recanvass, a court ordered recount might take weeks.
Weeks or months, there will likely be quite a difference in Connecticut based on which candidate wins. A Democratic Legislature will continue. With two candidates from two different parties there will be a dramatic difference in plans and gridlock.

Update 10:50pm: AP has Folley up by 8,424, withdraws call for Malloy, Bysiewicz yet to release results supporting her statement of Malloy lead of 3,103. According to Channel 8 <read>

Update 11/4 11:00pm: Out of state most of the day. Susan Bysiewicz scheduled a press conference to announce results, delayed it, and then said would not announce official results today. Now I am back we find that Bridgeport suddenly realized that they did not count one bag of 335 ballots. Foley calls a foul. I suspect incompetence. From CTNewsJunkie: “Found” Bag Of 335 Ballots Opened, Counted <read>

Bridgeport missed a legal deadline to finish counting its votes at 6 p.m. Wednesday. It’s still counting votes late into Thursday night. When they finish, Connecticut may finally find out whether Republican Foley or Democrat Dan Malloy is the state’s next chief elected official.

A tired worker responsible for counting ballots at the JFK School polling place she apparently went home after Tuesday night’s elections before the work was done. Only on Thursday night—when, because of a whole bunch of mistakes and problems in Bridgeport’s vote, officials were still busy working on an official tally—did the existence of the bag of uncounted ballots left behind become known.

Chris Covucci, Foley’s state field director, was present as Amy Espinosa opened the bag Thursday night. He objected to the decision to count these ballots. He said they should be taken to a neutral place and counted by a third party.

“We don’t know where they’ve been,” he said…

Bridgeport Republican Registrar of Voters Joe Borges confirmed in an interview that moderator Espinosa went home without finishing counting after the election Tuesday night. She left behind the bag of photocopied ballots—facsimiles of official ballots that Bridgeport gave to voters after real ballots ran out.

The bag contained 335 ballots. Officials had kept it sealed and say they knew of its existence.

Borges quoted Espinosa as saying she was going home Tuesday night “because of the late hour.”

“I can’t do it. I’m tired. I’ve got to go to work” the next day, he quoted her as saying.

Laske himself later issued a statement calling it “ completely irresponsible for counsel for the Foley campaign to mischaracterize this part of the process to the media, and to assert that any impropriety exists with regard to these ballots, which have been secured since they were cast, and their existence has been fully disclosed to the parties and to the public.”

If we can bank by ATM, why not vote by the Internet?

The usual explanation of why its not a good idea to vote by Internet, even thought we bank by ATM is that they are different applications. However, banking is not all that safe. Today in Connecticut we have a report of the vulnerabilities of credit cards and ATM transactions in the Hartford Courant.

The usual explanation of why its not a good idea to vote by Internet, even thought we bank by ATM is that they are different applications. It we got money from ATMs like we vote then:

We would not get a receipt
The bank would send us a monthly statement saying we had transactions, but no record of amounts or distinction between deposits and withdrawals (updated)
And the bank would only do single entry bookkeeping – showing only transactions to their accounts, without the customer name or account identified

We would probably call that faith based banking and quickly revert to cash and mattresses.

However, banking is not all that safe. Today in Connecticut we have a report of the vulnerabilities of credit cards and ATM transactions in the Hartford Courant <read>

Thieves installed “‘fake'” card readers at the cash registers, Det. Dane Semper of the West Hartford Police Department wrote in an e-mail. The devices allowed thieves to capture bank card data, authorization codes and PIN numbers…

Last week, a Romanian citizen, Ion Preda, 22, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport. Preda admitted that he and others installed skimming devices and pinhole cameras at ATMs in several states, including a People’s United Bank ATM in Madison. With the account information and PIN numbers they obtained, those involved used the information to create counterfeit bank cards. The combined loss to all the banks victimized was more than $200,000, authorities said.

In a similar vein criminals could place phony voting kiosks or attack individual personal computers. Worse still is the danger of insider fraud attacking Internet routers or servers. In fact, the fraud in the Courant article could most easily be accomplished by credit card equipment or ATM service technicians or retail employees and managers.

Then again we could vote the way we gambol with slot machines.

HAVA Scary Halloween: Ten years older and deeper in debt, yet far from credible elections

Two years ago we posted a Halloween preview:”eTRICK or reTREAT? Nightmare of Elections Future.” Lets look at where we are this year, and then we will calibrate (not celebrate) how far we have come.

The good news is that there are a slew of articles and reports in the mainstream media covering election integrity 10 years after the 2000 debacle. Just in time for the 2010 mid-term elections and just in time for Halloween. For adults wishing for that old-fashioned Halloween scare these articles should do the trick.

Two years ago we posted a Halloween preview: eTRICK or reTREAT? Nightmare of Elections Future. Lets look at where we are this year, and then we will calibrate (not celebrate) how far we have come, with the help of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

Need To Know covers the risk of paperless electronic voting with excellent demonstrations and explanations direct from Princeton: Ballot boxing: The problem with electronic voting machines <video>

While USA Today provides an editorial: A decade after Florida fiasco, voting remains a hodgepodge <read> Especially equipped with a Board of Elections’ Prayer for those interested in “Faith Based Voting”:

Let the weather be clear, let the turnout be heavy and let everyone who wins, win big.

And if you are not scared yet, take a dose of expert warnings about Internet voting in an article from CSO Secrity & Risk, quoting Doug Jones and David Jefferson: E-voting: How secure is it? <read>

More than half of all states in the U.S. will allow some kind of internet voting this year. But security experts say it’s a mistake and puts the nation at risk…On-site electronic voting machines also risky

Back To The Future – Revisiting: eTRICK or reTREAT? Nightmare of Elections Future.

The Ghost Of Presidential Elections Future:
It seems the problems all stemmed from what happened in the 2008 election and its aftermath. Its a little hazy but the ghost warned of three possible outcomes:

The polls are said to be very very wrong:
The people chose one candidate for President, but manipulations of the data, voter suppression, or Supreme Court action made the other candidate the winner. The media covers every reason but the obvious one that goes unreported. The really scary part was that the voters docilely accepted it – instead of hitting the streets, we all ended up on the streets over time.

The polls are only off a “little”: The predicted candidate won the Presidency by a small margin. Instead of the predicted 58-60 Democrats in the Senate and 20 more in the House, there were 54-55 in the Senate and 5 more in the House. Activists continued to object and present a wealth of facts. They are dismissed by the media as “conspiracy theorists”.

Grade: Incomplete.

Can we get away with saying “On the way to Halloween the Obama landslide ate our homework”?. All we can do is hope things don’t go wrong before there is a change in voting integrity. If Harry Reid wins by 15% or Christine O’Donnell pulls an upset then the pollsters or the election officials will have a lot more than missing homework to explain.

To paraphrase Walter Cronkite, “Nothing has changed, but your votes are not there”. The nightmare continued:

Beltway Lugosi Appears, The D.C. Goblin:
How could this have happened? Surely by 2012 or by 2016 we would have had election integrity.

Rep. Rush Holt proposes a better, stronger bill in 2009: The caucus says “what’s the rush Rush, come back later its too soon – we have important issues to deal with, there is plenty of time before the next Presidential Election”.

A persistent Rush Holt proposes a better, stronger bill in 2010: – House Leadership says “its too much, work on it and come back next year”.

Rush Holt proposes weakened bill in 2011 – Everyone says “Its too late, the election officials can’t get it done in a rush Rush, come back after the next election when there will be plenty of time”.

Rush Holt proposes a better, stronger bill in 2009 and it passes the House – The Feinstein/Bennett bill is immediately resurrected in the Senate and passes – it is all put into a joint committee – the result is the “Star Wars” of voting with spending as far as the eye can see and even less voting integrity than 2008.

Grade: CTVotersCount: A-, Congress: F-

We can’t be sure of all the details, but it sure looks a lot like we got #1, #2 and #3 pretty close. But we bet on some congressional action and #4 did not happen. We are just too optimistic by nature. We can always hope for 2016 or 2020. Lets work and hope for a good tipping point, before a bad one gets our democracy.

At least in Connecticut, we can rest assured that our votes will count, with our nickname, “The Constitution State”. Even if the voters approve the ballot question in 2008 to have a Constitutional Convention, surely we can rely on our other nickname, “The Land of Steady Habits” to carry the day and eventually, some day, protect our votes. The nightmare continued:

The Devil Is Truly In The details:

Connecticut earns its nickname, “The Nutmeg State“. When it comes to post-election audit law, the “Devil” is truly in the details.

The Shays/Himes Congressional race is close, less than .5% There is a recanvass(recount). Since recounts are by machine, if Himes(D) loses, Secretary Bysiewicz(D) cannot call for a manual recount without being charged with being political. If Shays(R) loses, she would be under great pressure to reverse her decision to recount by machine.

The Constitution question is close, less than .5%, and there is a recanvass(recount).
Since recounts are by machine, if “No” loses, Secretary of the State Bysiewicz, a strong supporter of “No”, could not call for a manual recount without being charged with making a political decision. If “Yes” loses, she would be under great pressure to reverse her decision to recount by machine.Worse, a single statewide recount, by law, eliminates all post-election audits, even if the Shays/Himes Congressional race is close but over .5%.

The Constitution question is close but over .5%:
It will not be audited – questions are exempt from post-election audits in Connecticut

The Shays/Himes Congressional race is close but over .5% and is not randomly selected for audit: We randomly select three offices for audit statewide. Instead of auditing close races for the U.S. Congress or the State Legislature we may waste resources excessively counting races with huge margins, or those with unopposed candidates, such as most races for Registrar of voters.

Grade: Course Not Offered. Maybe it will be available this November?

None of the races were that close. Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz chose to audit all five races and avoided any risk of biased selection.

This time, November 2010, the option of auditing all the races would be viewed as prohibitively to expensive to mandate. We will encourage the Secretary of the State to go beyond the law and to randomly select the three races to be audited in public (Its not required in the law, districts must be randomly selected publicly but not races). Let say there is a close race for Governor, Secretary of the State, or Congress. Choosing races for audit that avoid close races were the Secretary’s party won, or choosing those that the Secretary’s party lost can generate suspicion even when its done transparently in public.

Then again we could take the alternate course of a statewide recanvass – a nightmare in its own right!

I am awake now. With hard work and some luck, the voters choices may be confirmed in the election results and the voters could awake after the election to stay eternally vigilant. Some may say that this is just a dream, but it is preferable to the alternative nightmare.

eTRICK or reTREAT? Nightmare of Elections Future

The polls were accurate: The election results were as predicted. The predicted candidate won the Presidency. There were 58-60 Democrats in the Senate and about 20 more in the House. A few hard core activists remained, were completely ignored by the media, yet continued the fight for election integrity. The potential of election theft remained, while the potential for election integrity all but vanished.

Grade A–

From all the mainstream media stories about the Washington D.C. Internet voting test and the recent coverage of electronic voting, it seems that the media is waking up a bit. But we boldly predict, little, if any mainstream media coverage after, say, mid November.

Warning: NO Internet Voting In CT – A Scam or just misleading calls to voters?

“People have been stopping into the office to express concern over telephone calls that they’ve received in which they are directd [sic] to a web site where they believe they’re being told they can vote online,”

From the New Canaan Patch: Residents Report Concerns About Possible Voter “Scam” <read

Town Clerk says it’s not quite a scam, but not it’s not quite right, either.

Responding to reports that prospective voters have been approached by an organization inviting them to “vote online,” Town Clerk Claudia Weber said the outreach campaign is not quite a “scam,” but some of the information being offered is not completely accurate.

“People have been stopping into the office to express concern over telephone calls that they’ve received in which they are directd [sic] to a web site where they believe they’re being told they can vote online,” Weber told Patch.

She said Rep. John Hetherington, the registrar of voters and Republican Campaign Headquarters have received similar calls from concerned residents.

Weber said the callers identify themselves as part of The Legacy Foundation. They direct prospective voters to a password protected website for an organization called Democracy Depends on You!

“Once they get onto the site, they’re actually invited to request an application for an absentee ballot,” Weber said. Applying for an absentee ballot is legal. Weber says the problem is the language on the site.

With a password provided by the caller, prospective voters see the following message:

As you know, our Democracy depends on Americans from every part of our great country exercising their right to vote. Few elections have generated the enthusiasm of the election to be held this November 2nd.

For a multitude of reasons, you can avoid the long lines at the polls and vote early from the comfort of your own home.

Download and complete your application for absentee voting now. “There are only certain reasons to vote by absentee,” Weber said. “Wanting to avoid lines is not one of them. You can vote by absentee ballot if you are going to be absent during voting hours, bcause of illness or physical disability, if you are in service in the armed forces, if your religion forbids secular activity on that day, or if your required performance as an election official precludes you from getting to your polling place to vote.”

Patch was shown the Democracy Depends on You! website homepage, which provides no address or phone number. The site says it is “Paid for by the Alliance for America’s Future – not affiliated with LongDistanceVoter.com”.

The Alliance for America’s Future homepage says its mission is “dedicated to educating and advocating sound economic and security policies that will foster growth, prosperity, and peace for America’s future.”

We looked up the Alliance for America’s Future on Google, it seems to be a 527 linked to Mary Cheney.

Update: New Hampshire too <read>

Researchers: Early Voting alone DECREASES turnout

Researchers found: The convenience of Early Voting depresses turnout. Election Day Registration increases turnout. When both are combined the effect is about the same as Election Day Registration alone.

Op-Ed by researchers in the New York Times: Voting Early, but Not So Often <Op-Ed> <Full Report>

Turnout is a prime justification for early voting. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin analyzed early voting and discovered it actually decreases turnout.

From the Op-Ed

States have aggressively expanded the use of early voting, allowing people to submit their ballots before Election Day in person, by mail and in voting centers set up in shopping malls and other public places. More than 30 percent of votes cast in the 2008 presidential race arrived before Election Day itself, double the amount in 2000. In 10 states, more than half of all votes were cast early, with some coming in more than a month before the election. Election Day as we know it is quickly becoming an endangered species…

But a thorough look at the data shows that the opposite is true: early voting depresses turnout by several percentage points…Controlling for all of the other factors thought to shape voter participation, our model showed that the availability of early voting reduced turnout in the typical county by three percentage points

Early voting only adds to convenience and weakens the effect and motivation for Get Out The Vote Efforts:

Even with all of the added convenience and easier opportunities to cast ballots, turnout not only doesn’t increase with early voting, it actually falls. How can this be? The answer lies in the nature of voter registration laws, and the impact of early voting on mobilization efforts conducted by parties and other groups on Election Day.

In most states, registration and voting take place in two separate steps. A voter must first register, sometimes a month before the election, and then return another time to cast a ballot. Early voting by itself does not eliminate this two-step requirement. For voters who missed their registration deadline, the convenience of early voting is irrelevant.

Irrelevant to the current research yet relevant to the issue, we point out that early voting also changes the campaign season. With many voting early, literature, advertisements, news articles, late developments, and endorsements occurring after voting begins influence fewer and fewer votes, both in elections and primaries.

The researchers found one exception. Election Day Registration (EDR) when combined with Early Voting does increase turnout:

Fortunately, there is a way to improve turnout and keep the convenience of early voting. Our research shows that when early voting is combined with same-day registration — that is, you can register to vote and cast an early ballot on the same day — the depressive effect of early voting disappears. North Carolina and Vermont, two otherwise very different states that combined early voting with same-day registration, had turnout levels in 2008 that were much higher than the overall national figure of 58 percent of the voting-age population. Turnouts in Vermont and North Carolina were, respectively, 63 percent and 64 percent. Allowing Election-Day registration, in which voters can register at the polling place, has the same effect. Our models show that the simple presence of Election-Day registration in states like Minnesota and New Hampshire increases turnout by more than six points.

So, it seems that Election Day Registration alone has the same effect as early voting combined with EDR. Perhaps more research is needed to verify the combined effect vs. EDR alone. But for now early voting must be considered as a convenience only, and without EDR a detriment to turnout.

Of course, this is only one study and only one election. But the report sets the bar quite high for them level of detail and analysis. And the enthusiasm of 2008 would be the last type of election environment where we would expect a convenience functioning to reduce turnout.

Going forward, proponents of Early Voting, who accept this research, must embrace EDR while focusing on the convenience and prove claimed cost savings of early voting(*). CTVotersCount will continue our efforts to point out integrity risks of mail-in voting(**), and the costs associated with safe early voting.

* We have heard many claims of cost savings for mail-in voting. A case would need to be made based on each state’s proposed implementation. Perhaps it is easy to show savings for statewide all mail-in voting, yet maintaining election day polling place voting would on the surface save little, unless many polling places were closed – negating at least some existing convenience.

** As Ron Rivest has pointed out, there is a case for excuse absentee balloting including military and overseas voters. But limiting mail-in voting, limits exposure, and limits the risk.

Register Citizen: Denise Merrill favors regionalization of some election functions

getting Connecticut’s towns more up to speed with modern technology will be one of her goals. “I will work very hard to enforce a statewide voter registration Web site … I’m looking at regional solutions (for voter registration),” she said. “We just don’t have the money for every town to do what they do,” she added, referring to the traditional voting process that requires staffing, machines and the costs that go with them.

getting Connecticut’s towns more up to speed with modern technology will be one of her goals. “I will work very hard to enforce a statewide voter registration Web site … I’m looking at regional solutions (for voter registration),” she said.

“We just don’t have the money for every town to do what they do,” she added, referring to the traditional voting process that requires staffing, machines and the costs that go with them. “Voting in person is less common now in some towns, because people don’t live where they work, so they opt for an absentee ballot.”

We note one small, yet perhaps critical error in the article. Jerry Farrell is Commissioner of Consumer Protection, rather than the Office of Public Safety.

Editor’s Note: CTVotersCount attempts to provide fair coverage of the Secretary of the State race. We reference any information that we find that may help citizens determine their vote, particularly with regard to issues associated with voting integrity and voting in general. We certainly do not find every article published and also ignore many which primarily provide redundant information to previous posts with well known candidate positions and information. At times it seems we have several posts in a row focused on one candidate and at other times several focused on another candidate. The posts we cover are selected for informational value and based on when we discover the information. (Also, see our Editor’s Note on the 2010 race for Secretary of the State)

Denise Merrill outlines Secretary of the State campaign

Video: Hartford Courant interviews of the Secretary of the State candidates

We appreciate the Courant and CT-N for making these interviews available to the public, providing an additional unique opportunity for voters to learn about the candidates positions and personalities. However, we note several criticisms of the interviews.

We appreciate the Courant and CT-N for making these interviews available to the public, providing an additional unique opportunity for voters to learn about the candidates positions and personalities. We recommend listening to both interviews to gain a perspective beyond the few quotes we include below.

However, we note several criticisms of the interviews:

The questions are limited to those areas of interest to the Editorial Board and are shaped by their ideas for change. We note the absence of any questions about voting integrity, voting systems for those with disabilities, supporting military and overseas voters, ballot initiatives, or our relationship to vendors responsible for servicing our election equipment and programming our elections. Although the candidates did touch just a little bit on election integrity and the security of mail and internet voting.
The Board asked Farrell but not Merrill, how he differed from his opponent.
The Board asked Farrell but not Merrill, if he would have chosen the same equipment as Secretary Bysiewicz.
The Board asked Farrell but not Merrill, if he was going to keep any lists of people he would be doing business with.
The Board asked Farrell but not Merrill, if he would keep a list of people who called the office to ask for help.
The Board asked Merrill but not Farrell, about the law providing for three registrars if a third-party registrar is elected.
The Courant Editorial Board seems, at this time, to find it amusing that there are “Voting Integrity Activists In Connecticut” and that they have met some such activists (see the Farrell interview). For the record, to my knowledge, I have never met a member of the Courant Editorial Board. However, not so long ago, the Courant thanked voting integrity activists, including me, in one of their editorials for “willingness to shoulder civic responsibility and to apply their expertise and vigilance to the cause has helped to protect and strengthen voting in Connecticut”.

Denise Merrill <view>

A few quotes of interest to CTVotersCount readers:

“[More participation] is the core mission of this job”
“We should do everything we can to make voting easy”
“I want want really very much to have the no-excuse absentee ballot”
“[election day registration] not until we have a really good statewide voter file…not an efficient system yet”
“I’d like to focus on more consistent procedures for everyone”
Should the hurdles for third-party candidates be lowered: “I don’t think so. The system as it is is pretty fair”
“People still by and large trust the system”
100% Mail-in voting, like Colorado, with permanent absentee status?
“They invested a lot in their voting systems…something we ought to consider…maybe something like same day registration would increase participation more with less risk”

Jerry Farrell: <view>

A few quotes of interest to CTVotersCount readers:

“Three roles as I would see it: First voting…secondly…business registrar…thirdly…custodian of state records which I would capitalize on”
“[More Participation] If we were to go different route on how we conduct elections, there could be financial repercussions to the towns and cities…I am for amending the law…to get rid of the provision that calls for an excuse to be given to get the absentee ballot”
“I would be very careful about same day registration…there is no way as it is presently configured for the polling official to find out if that person is registered elsewhere…you would need some type of electronic hook-up…that has a cost to it”
“At the end of the day…voting must have the greatest amount of integrity to it”
“Voting integrity activists…have absolutely impressed on me…the fact that absolute paper trail is such a necessity.”
“It would be very hard for me to be out there running [without public financing]…I am a very firm advocate of it…we cannot have a system [where the] third parties [have an] absolutely impossible impediment”

Denise Merrill: 2nd Campaign Commercial

Here is her 2nd commercial <view> Previously, Merrill had been ran the same commercial used before the primary. And Jerry Farrell has run two since the primary. Update 10/29.2010: Radio ad <listen>

Here is her 2nd commercial <view>

Previously, Merrill had been ran the same commercial used before the primary. And Jerry Farrell has run two since the primary.

Update 10/29.2010: Radio ad <listen>