Yes New York, There Is No Virus In NY-23

A couple of days ago a news story about a virus in the election equipment used in New York’s 23rd Congressional District Special Eection. We should not rely on the assessment of frustrated election officials to understand the risks of technology or the assessment of the cause of problems with voting and voting technology. Bo Lopari sets the record straight in his blog. But it is not all good news.

Update: A Richard Hayes Phillips: Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23 <read>

Richard is the author of Witness To A Crime proving several beyond doubt several forms of skulduggery in Ohio-2004.  We hosted Richard for a book signing in Connecticut last year.  I had forgotten that he is a resident of Canton, NY, within NY-23.  His report may not prove fraud or that the incorrect candidate was certified, yet it certainly demonstrates incompetence and holes in the computer-human system.

For six election districts in St. Lawrence County (the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 7th districts in Canton, the 14th district in Massena, and the 2nd district in Oswegatchie) negative numbers appear in the column for “blank” ballots, known in other states as “undervotes.” …

In Canton’s 7th district, the certified results show a total of 148 ballots cast. The results of those votes were counted as 88 votes for Owens, 11 votes for Scozzafava, and 80 votes for Hoffman. The problem is that these numbers add up to 179 votes counted for the candidates, and there were only 148 ballots cast; St. Lawrence County certified these numbers to the state as accurate with the number of ‘blank’ ballots reported as -31.

Update: A second opinion from Howard Stanislevic <read>

An article quoting an election official who claimed there was a “virus” in the voting system has been criticized for the misuse of this term. While technically, the critics may be correct — a bug discovered in the software is not necessarily a virus — critics also seem unaware of the history of the machines in question.

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Original Post:

A couple of days ago a news story about a virus in the election equipment used in New York’s 23rd Congressional District Special Election.  We should not rely on the assessment of frustrated election officials to understand the risks of technology or the assessment of the cause of problems with voting and voting technology.  Bo Lopari sets the record straight in his blog <read>

How do I know? Well, in the first place, the Dominion ImageCast scanners in question run the Linux operating system, which is nearly immune to viruses due to its inherent ability to lock out programs that lack explicit permission to run, unlike the highly vulnerable Windows operating system. Second, the State Board of Elections gave an account of the problem at their public meeting on November 10, and which I confirmed in a phone conversation with staff earlier this week. Here’s what really happened:

But it is not all good news:

Let’s be clear. While no votes were lost due to the ability to independently count the paper ballots, a problem did occur that affected certain machines around the state. The issue was a bug in the Dominion source code that caused the machine to hang while creating ballot images for certain vote combinations in multiple candidate elections (the ImageCast, like the other scanner used in New York, the ES&S DS200, creates digital images of each ballot which can be reviewed after the election). So if, for example, a “vote for three candidates out of five” race was voted in a certain way, the scanner would hang. This is one reason why the defect affected some, but not all machines with ballots containing this type of race, because only certain combinations of votes caused the memory problem. But here’s the thing – the problem was discovered before the election.

Chain-Of-Custody Education In Haddam

A tight Board of Education race in Haddam provides an example four understanding chain-of-custody and recounts vs. recanvasses.
* The chain-of-custody is important and its enforcement is important
* Every vote is important, counting every vote accurately, transparently, and credibly is critical to democracy
* Recounts and recount laws are important

A tight Board of Education race in Haddam provides an example four understanding chain-of-custody and recounts vs. recanvasses.  Courant story: Dispute Over Recount In Haddam Board Of Education Race <read>

Republicans said they plan to call the secretary of the state’s office today to ask officials to investigate confusion about the vote for a seat on the board of eduction. Democrats, who say there is no confusion, called a meeting Tuesday evening to sort out the issue. A dozen Democrats and Republicans met, but left without reaching a consensus.

Democrats say the following occurred:

The unofficial vote count after the Nov. 3 election showed Republican Chester Harris beating Democratic incumbent Sabrina Houlton by one vote. Because of the slim margin, the town held a recount Nov. 10, which showed the same result.

The next day, when town offices were closed for Veterans Day, election head moderator Marge DeBold, a former Democratic first selectman, was reviewing the election information and found a clerical error. She noticed that next to Houlton’s name on the absentee vote count were four tally marks and the number “3.” DeBold said she realized that someone had miscounted the marks as three instead of four.

The next day, DeBold told Democratic Registrar Pat Hess what she had found. Hess authorized DeBold and Town Clerk Ann Huffstetler, also a Democrat, to open the sealed envelopes containing the ballots to review the tally sheets and to amend the recount.

Hess said Tuesday that she knew representatives from both parties needed to be present during all vote-counting procedures, but the GOP registrar could not attend that morning and they wanted to get the new tallies quickly to file the proper paperwork with the secretary of the state’s office. She said there was no intentional wrongdoing.

The additional vote for Houlton meant the race was a tie. State law mandates that the town must hold a runoff election between tied candidates. The election will be Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday, GOP Town Chairman Kenneth Gronbach alleged that the three Democrats — DeBold, Hess and Huffstetler — had tampered with votes.

“This isn’t Afghanistan. This is the United States of America,” Gronbach said. “It’s a conspiracy. The vote was changed; sealed documents were opened and altered.”

By Tuesday evening, he said he wasn’t accusing anyone of fraud, but would file a complaint with the State Elections Enforcement Commission and would file an injunction to prevent Tuesday’s election. He said that the last legal step in the process was the initial recount, and that its result is the one that should count.

Houlton argued that the mistake needed to be fixed, adding, “If that’s what the voters really want, then the runoff will speak to that.”

Harris said the issue “is that the process was corrupted. When you go by yourselves, just you two, it gives the appearance of impropriety.”

We also viewed a news report on WFSB-TV last night covering a meeting of Haddam officials and  the actual hashmark sheet involved.

What can we learn from this?

  • The chain-of-custody is important and its enforcement is important
  • Every vote is important, counting every vote accurately, transparently, and credibly is critical to democracy
  • Recounts and recount laws are important

The chain-of-custody is important and its enforcement is important

The credibility of the election process is dependent on a strong chain-of-custody to protect the ballots and associated election materials so that recanvasses, recounts, and post-election audits will be accurate and trusted.   In Haddam we have a classic situation where the evidence of the election has been called into question.  There are two additional problems here.  First, even if there was no tampering with votes or hashmark sheets candidates and the public cannot trust the process, lose faith in their government, and have to settle for a new election.

A new election is a fine solution for an actual election tie, and would be a necessary remedy for a compromised election.  But it is not as good for a compromised election as performing the original election as intended.  A new election is costly to candidates and taxpayers.  Also it brings out a different group of voters and may or may not produce the same result as ab original election with integrity would have.

Unfortunately, in Connecticut, election laws, regulations, procedures and common sense are often not followed.  The Coaltion Post-Election Audit Reports have documented many lapses in procedures, including the chain-of-custody.   It is quite possible that in this case there was a violation of state law subject to enforcement, as the registrar points out “Hess said Tuesday that she knew representatives from both parties needed to be present during all vote-counting procedures”.  In our experience most violations of  the chain-of-custody are not discovered, not enforced, and not enforceable.  Part of the problem is that, in Connecticut, only laws are enforceable, leaving regulations and procedures unenforceable – our ballots are only protected by law for fouteen days after the election, such that violations of procedures and common sense observed during the post-election audits are not enforceable.

The actual problem goes much deeper than this incident and the law.  Common sense would imply that access to ballots should require at a minimum: access by two individuals with opposing interests, logging of all access, and systems to assure that violations of such access were prevented.  In many states counties run elections and hold ballots in vaults, covered by 24×7 survelence and guards etc.  In Connecticut, in most towns (according to Coalition surveys) either registrar has access to a key to ballot storage; in many towns any employee in the registrars’ office has such access; in others additional town employees including school janitors.  The seals used for ballots in Connecticut can be compromised in a matter of minutes or seconds – they are useful but do not protect the ballots sufficiently when they can be accessed by individuals for extended periods.

Two years ago, I asked a security expert if I was being too hard in expecting Connecticut to follow stronger chain-of-custody procedures.  He pointed out that officials should not want such open access as it would open them to potential questions of tampering – that they would be unable to refute.  Case in point Haddam, even though many will trust the word of the officials, there will always be a lingering doubt.

Every vote is important, counting every vote accurately, transparently, and credibly is critical to democracy.

Time to reiterate the importance of every vote, the accuracy of every registration, the work to make sure every voter has a full opportunity within the law to vote, counting every absentee vote, every qualified provisional ballot, military and overseas ballot.

Also making sure that every effort is expended to properly reject ballots and unqualified voters and votes.  To take reasonable steps to prevent fraud, such as avoiding internet voting, and penalizing fraud.

To voters:  Make sure you vote.  Carefully consider the risks of absentee voting or mail-in voting before you subject your vote to the added risk of fraud or error in such votes.

Recounts and recount laws are important.

I did not attend and can find no specific news reports of the Haddam ‘recount’, but unless it was unusual it likely conformed to the Connecticut close vote ‘recanvass’ law and procedures.  As we have pointed out in the past there is a huge difference between a recount as conducted in some other states and the ‘recanvass’ conducted in Connecticut.  <Our Comparison w/Minnesota>

Recanvasses may sufice to uncover significant transcription and arithmetic errors and a poorly tuned scanner.  But when it comes down to one or two ballots in a district or perhaps a handfull in a town recanvass procedures may not be accurate enough.  Here we have a one or zero ballot margin.  In the Haddam race, just like a recent recanvass we attended that was judged a tie, one ballot can make a difference.  One hashmark made under the wrong candidate.  One vote misspoken or misunderstood.  One apparent undervote that was actually a vote for a candidate.  One ballot with identifying markings, but missed – such ballots should not be counted in Connecticut.  One overvote not detected when counting ballots in multi-vote races.  Every part of the process should be verified by two people to avoid simple errors like an incorrect count of hasmarks, transcription, or addition errors.  The only reliable way we know is for mutiple officials to check every ballot on both sides, with candididate representatives watching; multiple officials checking every aspect including tallying. It is not a matter of official integrity or misconduct, it is to count with a level of precision equal to the closeness of the election.

Retail Fraud – A Stitch In Time Could Save Democracy

So, in Hartford, it seems that nothing is wrong with a little tax evasion a “lot of people” do it. It seems that voting fraud is regarded as almost in that same category except we don’t really know if a “lot of people” and officials do it or not. Maybe it is treated casually elsewhere in Connecticut and around the country. This is one of the two reasonse we are against expanded mail-in voting which includes no-excuse absentee voting – at a minimum it will mean more retail fraud and more voters unknowingly disenfranchised.

Update:  Looks like the changes will be difficult to confirm and maybe there is nothing behind them <read>

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There is no agreement on the demarcation between retail vote fraud and wholesale vote fraud.  In general retail fraud represents fraud that involves individual voters and individual votes, while wholesale fraud would represent fraud an a large scale by insiders or hackers.  Everyone would agree that forging a handful of ballots would be retail fraud and that misprogramming voting machines would be wholesale fraud.  The middle ground comes when in a statewide election an official in a single town substitutes or votes a few dozen ballots, or in a Presidential election one hacker changes the results on a single polling place machine.

Sometimes the existence of retail fraud is denied, ignored, or almost dismissed.  We tend to think it dosen’t happen, accept it as part of the system, or believe that it does not matter.  Two stories in Connecticut this week seem to conform to these views:

New Haven Register: Alderman alleges voter fraud <read>

In a complaint filed this week with the state Elections Enforcement Commission, Alderman Greg Morehead, D-22 accuses write-in opponent Lisa Hopkins of applying for and filling out absentee ballots against the wishes of voters, allegations Hopkins says are not true.

Hopkins lost to Morehead by eight votes in a hotly contested Democratic primary in September. She returned in the general election as a write-in candidate, securing 194 votes to Morehead’s 237. More than half of Hopkins’ votes, 107, came from absentee ballots. Morehead received 24 absentee ballot votes, records show.

In his complaint, Morehead alleges Hopkins told an elderly voter to hand Hopkins a signed absentee ballot before selecting a candidate. Morehead claims Hopkins told the voter she would complete the form.

In a close race with a margin of eight votes two alleged cases of fraud.  If true, that could cut the margin to four.  And this would be just the fraud discovered by this one candidate – if true, what are the odds there was more fraud?

To vote by absentee ballot, voters must show they are unable to make it to the polls on Election Day. “We don’t have ‘no excuse’ absentee ballot voting,” said Av Harris, spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of the State.

To be eligible, voters must show they will be out of state on Election Day, have an illness or physical disability that prevents them from getting to a polling place, or have a religious reason why they cannot vote on Election Day.

Voters must swear in an affidavit that they personally filled out the ballot. There may be rare circumstances in which a voter’s disability requires that someone fill out their ballot for them, but “it has to be a pretty compelling reason,” Harris said.

Absentee ballot fraud is not common, he said.

We agree that you need to have an excuse or lie to vote absentee ballot in Connecticut.  We are not so sure that absentee ballot fraud is uncommon – maybe, maybe not – here is a recent story on three instances of absentee very retail voting fraud <read>  And another from a while back <read page 1>

Here is another story this week showing how little we regard the seriousness of absentee ballot fraud.  The Hartford Courant: Tax Troubles At City Hall <read>

Four years ago, Hartford Democratic operative Prenzina Holloway was fined $10,000 for absentee ballot fraud. But state officials allowed her to pay only $2,000 of the fine because she demonstrated financial hardship.

Yet a year and a half later, the apparently financially strapped Ms. Holloway bought a used Hummer for $31,727, state motor vehicle records show. According to city records, she never paid city taxes on the Hummer. She owes Hartford $3,500.

But she did draw a city paycheck recently for a one-week stint in the registrar of voters’ office — a temporary job she shouldn’t have been given because of her unsavory ballot-fraud past.

And the delinquent taxes? That seems to present no problem to Ms. Holloway’s daughter, rJo Winch, who just happens to be Democratic majority leader of the Hartford city council. “A lot of people in city hall owe the city money,” sniffed Ms. Winch.

So, in Hartford, it seems that nothing is wrong with a little tax evasion a “lot of people” do it.  It seems that voting fraud is regarded as almost in that same category except we don’t really know if a “lot of people” and officials do it or not.  Maybe it is treated casually elsewhere in Connecticut and around the country.  This is one of the two reasonse we are against expanded mail-in voting which includes no-excuse absentee voting – at a minimum it will mean more retail fraud and more voters unknowingly disenfranchised.

How To NOT Instill Confidence In Election Integrity

one of the voting machines had broken down Tuesday evening, forcing poll workers to switch to a separate machine to count the remaining ballots. Some of the ballots had been photocopied because election officials believed they had run out of the official ballots. It was later revealed that officials had more than 1,000 unused ballots locked in the registrar of voters’ office.

Waterbury Republican: Ex-first selectman has lawyer probe Middlebury voting <read>

MIDDLEBURY — Former First Selectman Edward B. St. John has hired an attorney to investigate ballot irregularities in the Nov. 3 election.

Dennis M. Buckley, a Waterbury-based attorney, is reviewing documents filed by poll workers and election officials for St. John.

St. John, who ran as a write-in candidate, raised concerns immediately following the election after he learned one of the voting machines had broken down Tuesday evening, forcing poll workers to switch to a separate machine to count the remaining ballots. Some of the ballots had been photocopied because election officials believed they had run out of the official ballots. It was later revealed that officials had more than 1,000 unused ballots locked in the registrar of voters’ office.

“He wants to know what they should have done and what they did do,” Buckley said Wednesday. “Obviously, the only thing Mr. St. John has been able to do up until this point is listen to hearsay.”

Buckley said he plans to contact the Secretary of the State’s Office about the photocopied ballots, which were single-sided and did not have instructions on how to fill in the ballots for write-in candidates, something St. John has said could have hurt his candidacy.

MA: Talk – A Poor Substitute For Integrity?

Don’t Count Your Ballots Up in Massachusetts. That Sort Of Thing Just Isn’t Done.

Jammed voting machine misses six ballots in close race. We say “Maybe, maybe not”.

Don’t Count Your Ballots Up in Massachusetts. That Sort Of Thing Just Isn’t Done.

Story in the Eagle-Tribune about Methuen, MA:  Jammed voting machine misses six ballots in close race <read> We say “Maybe, maybe not”.

Here is the summary from the City Clerk Christine Touma-Conway:

“The integrity of the process is being proven by the fact that we’ve discovered this and are talking about it,” Touma-Conway said. “That’s why we have all these checks and double checks and triple checks.”

What exactly did they discover?

the number of voters checked in and out was six higher than the number of ballots counted by the AccuVote voting machine. That leads Touma-Conway to believe six votes weren’t counted.

That could be true, however, its also possible that 6 voters walked out without voting.  Or perhaps an error was made in the check-in process.  Did the machine jam and lose votes?  We use the same machines in Connecticut and have instructions for election officials to handle jams such that votes are counted once and only once – it would be quite an exception if the same human error were made six times in the same polling place — yet it could happen.  Here is what is reported:

The machine read 762 ballots, but 768 voters checked in and out at Precinct 7. The box containing the ballots is sealed, so officials don’t know for certain whether there are in fact 768 ballots in there, but Touma-Conway expects there is.

Voting machines regularly become jammed temporarily, resulting in one or two votes not being counted, but that usually doesn’t affect an election because the votes usually aren’t as close as the result between Kazanjian and Henrick. Plus, it’s rare for as many as six votes to go uncounted, Touma-Conway said.

Hum, perhaps they lose votes from jamming.  MA has more experience with these machines, yet how do they know?  Massachusetts does not have a post-election audit.  But what does it matter if we lose six votes in an election?  Should every voters vote really count?

This adds a new twist to the School Committee election saga, where incumbent Kenneth Henrick placed just five votes ahead of his friend and fellow incumbent George Kazanjian.

We often criticize Connecticut for having an inadequate recanvass law that falls short of a true recount, but at least we do an automatic recanvass when the election is close.  Despite our criticism of the weaknesses and inefficiencies in our post-election audit law, we do have one.  When questions arise situations similar to this one, the Secretary of the State’s office often refers the situations to the UConn VoTeR Center for research and actual factual answers.

Post-Election Audit Random Drawing

Today, three members of CTVotersCount drew 10% (60 districts) of 600 districts in the November election for the post-election audits.
Many towns ask why the are chosen so often?

Today, three members of CTVotersCount drew 10% (60 districts) of 600 districts in the November election for the post-election audits.    There were thirty-five towns comprising well over 100 districts that were therefor exempted from the audit.  We chose the 60 from the remaining districts.

Many towns ask why the are chosen so often?  In Connecticut we audit 10% of the districts after each election and primary — a town with around 10 districts should expect to be chosen frequently to participate in the audit  —  if a town has 20+ districts it should expect to have a district chosen almost every time  and ususally more than one of its districts.  In other states such as, Minnesota, each county must audit some of its districts each time.  Some of those counties are smaller than many Connecticut towns.

Here is the Secretary of the State’s Press Release with the list of towns and a photo from the drawing: <Press Release>

“We had a very smooth Municipal Election Day last Tuesday, but as I have said many times, we in Connecticut don’t just take the machines’ word for it — we audit the results of every election,” said Secretary Bysiewicz. “We want to make sure that as voters come to the polls and cast ballots in Connecticut they have continued confidence that their votes were recorded accurately. hat is why the independent audits are so vital”…

“Auditing election results isn’t just a good idea, it’s absolutely essential in order to guarantee the integrity of our elections,” said Secretary Bysiewicz.

Reminders from CTVotersCount, Secretary Bysiewicz and the Waterbury Republican

Close races prove votes matter.
Voters matter
Election Integrity Matters
Recanvasses are not what we would call recounts.

Article in the Waterbury Republican <read>

Close races prove votes matter

In New Hartford, just one vote separated Phyllis Webb and Bruce Gresczyk for a seat on the Board of Selectmen. With just 16 votes separating three selectman candidates in Oxford, a recount is expected to determine which two will serve the next two years. Democrat Elizabeth T. Falzone and Republican William L. Fredericks battled to a tie for a Region 16 Board of Education seat…

if just two Webb supporters in New Hartford had hopped into their cars and driven to the polls rather than staying home, she’d have a seat waiting for her on the Board of Selectmen, pending a recount…

Ms. Bysiewicz reported recounts will be necessary in at least 35 communities, or about 20 percent of the towns and cities in Connecticut.

Reminders from CTVotersCount:

  • Votes matter. Voters Matter
  • Election Integrity Matters – just one machine programming error or manual transcription error can cause differences of hundreds or thousands of votes.
  • Connecticut has “Close Vote Recanvasses”   –  these are not really recounts as they are usually understood – they are machine recanvasses performed by reading most of the votes back through machines with memory cards programmed by those same out of state contractors, LHS Associates.

Is A Democracy Index In Our Future?

The American Democracy Index Act (H.R.4033) seeks to improve election administration throughout the United States by ranking states on election performance and comparing best and worst practices.

Representative Steve Isreal announces bill to create a state by state Democracy Index <read>

The American Democracy Index Act (H.R.4033) seeks to improve election administration throughout the United States by ranking states on election performance and comparing best and worst practices…

The American Democracy Index Act requires that the Election Assistance Commission contract with an entity to collect voter data and publish the American Democracy Index for the federal election cycle of 2012. The American Democracy Index (ADI) will present voter and election administration data on a state-by-state basis in a manner designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of election administration practices. States will be ranked according to criteria established by an independent advisory board of election administration experts in consultation with the Election Assistance Commission. The legislation also establishes a pilot program for the 2010 federal election cycle to create an index that ranks localities within five states to measure the effectiveness of their election administration.

The concept is based on a proposal that Yale Law School Professor Heather Gerken wrote about in her book, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It. She argues that a “Democracy Index” – a public ranking of election performances around the country – would encourage states to take real steps to make voting easier.

This sounds like a good idea, yet it depends – it depends on what data is collected and who gets to charcterize it.  Our concern would be that the data might be too superficial to judge the quality of actual compliance with a standard.

Here is a like  to Heather K. Gerken’s book, we need to add it to our reading list. <link>

A Day As Absentee Ballot Moderator

This election day was spent as moderator for central counting of absentee ballots, once again, in Vernon, CT. I tend to learn by reading and doing. In 2008, I became a Certified Moderator and served my 1st time as an election official. As I said at the time:

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand. – Confucius

(Draft subject to improvement)

This election day was spent as moderator for central counting of absentee ballots, once again, in Vernon, CT.  In Connecticut absentee ballots can be delivered to the district (precinct) and counted there or counted centrally for each town.  Most towns with more than a very few polling places count them centrally, with a separate counting team and an Absentee Ballot Moderator.

I tend to learn by reading and doing.  In 2008, I became a Certified Moderator and served my 1st time as an election official.  As I said at the time:

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand. – Confucius

One of my goals this year was to obtain more hands-on experience in the election process by serving as an election official. In August I attended moderator training. I became a certified moderator which, in no way qualified me to actually be a moderator (I would describe a moderator as the czar of a polling place). Reading the manual and taking the training would never be enough for me to grasp such a job, without perhaps several years experience as a poll worker. Thanks to Judi Beaudreau, Moderator Trainer, and Registrar of Voters, Vernon, CT, I worked one of the polls in Vernon this year. I spent about half my time as a ballot clerk and about half as machine tender.

And as I concluded last year:

PS: Tired, but interested in election results, I went to my local party headquarters to follow the election results. One race had a margin of 300 votes and everyone wanted to wait for 2800 absentee ballots to be counted to be sure of the result. The absentee results were predicted to be available at the earliest 3:00am. Few present knew we scanned absentee ballots centrally, they assumed officials were counting 2800 ballots by hand. I wondered: “How can it take that long? Especially when counting and sorting starts at noon? Even if its done by hand, how can it possibly take that long?” I heard some possible issues that I had not considered, but nothing that would convince me it should take that long unless its a very very small counting team. An area for me to study and observe further. Perhaps in the next election some town in Connecticut would let me participate as an official in their central count absentee operation on election day. I know I would learn something.

Be careful what you ask for.  Emailing Judi a couple of reminders that I was interested in working on absentee ballots, so that I could really understand the process, she sent back the “Procedure Manual For Counting Absentee Ballots” and said they were considering hiring me as absentee ballot moderator.  The immediate thought: “Decline, I’m not ready. This time I want to be a counter and maybe next time be a moderator”, but then “I can probably do it, who knows if I would get another chance.  It is not the 18 hour day of a polling place moderator, we start later.  Its not the same as a polling place with real time decisions as voters arrive”.  And not knowing the rates in Vernon, I might make a small fortune.

In the 10 days before the election I read the manual completely, twice.  Judi says it needs revisions and updating, it was written in 2007 just as Connecticut was changing from levers to optical scanners.  It is quite detailed, yet it gives little guidance on the actual hand counting of ballots – but then I realize that almost all absentee ballots are counted by scanner so we are likely to only have a very few ballots to count by hand.

I arrive 15 minutes early.  I note that the office is staffed by young officials, presumably some experienced graduates of the special program allowing 16 and 17 year old’s participate as election officials – Vernon takes full advantage of the program.  Two phone lines are ringing constantly.  The officials answer the calls and perhaps 1/3rd of time consult the registrars.  I recall the many calls I saw last year, from the moderator of my polling place to headquarters.  Many of the calls are checking voter registration, some of which are required by our election system.  It is busy, yet calm.

At 1:00 pm,  Judi swears me in, goes over the procedures and the paper work, and the pre-printed forms with me.  Instead of a single central count optical scanner and memory card, they use one memory card per district starting and closing two optical scanners a total of six times, once for each district.  I will be very familiar with the opening and closing procedures by the end of today.  Judi explains the advantages of this scheme being lower cost for memory card programming, keeping the ballots per district segregated, and that an incorrectly issued ballot would not be  incorrectly counted.  (An incorrectly issued ballot occurs when a ballot for the wrong district is sent to the voter – a separate memory card would detect it, but a combined one would count it for the wrong district, including votes for candidates the voter was not eligible to vote for.  Yet, in Vernon, in this election, there is one ballot for all six districts so the clerk could not mix them up, on the other hand, the machine could not count them by district either.  So the towns using a central count, single card arrangement must have different ballots even if they all have the same contests across the board?)  We will be counting in the town council chambers on the third floor.

The Registrars, Judi and Patricia Noblet, officially deliver the ballots to me, which I count and accept for each of the six districts.  282 ballots in double envelops – easy to count and separate, they do not stick together.  But if there were a much larger number I would need some counters to help.

I distribute the ballots, pre-printed forms, ballot envelopes, and memory cards (sealed in see-through pouches) in six locations around the town council tables.

At 2:15 pm the four election officials arrive who will be the counters, process the envelopes and ballots.  I swear them in.  Judi does the training and provides a one-page list of steps for the processing and counting.  I suggest and decide that we will do the process by performing the steps that logically go together for all districts and then the next set of steps for all districts etc. so that we can concentrate on one part of the process at a time. Judi says to call her when we are ready to start scanning.

The old hand-count system counted absentee ballots in batches for each district as they come in from the post office  – the manual still expects this process.  We will process the envelopes, review each ballot to determine if it should be hand-counted, hand-count those that need to be, but leave final counts open and report everything at the end as one batch.  Because we are using separate memory cards, we won’t scan any ballots until we are sure we have almost all the absentee ballots.  If any come in after we scan a district, then they would have to be manually counted.

Judi explains that we should hand-count all ballots where we think there is any question that the machine would read it correctly or incorrectly.   They have chosen to not override on the scanner to count ballots with overvotes, so we should hand count any ballots with overvotes.  If the machine kicks out any overvotes that we mis then those would be hand counted.

If there are any questions about votes or envelopes etc., the counters bring it to my attention.  As moderator I make the “final” decision and write it on the envolope or ballot.  (I realize that accepting an envelope is final, since once the ballot is separated from the envolope, it cannot be changed.  If I make a decision on a ballot, it could be changed or challenged in a recount or recanvass).

We check each outer envelope against the list of voters – they must have been marked as voting absentee on the list – they all match.

In Connecticut we don’t validate signatures on envelopes, but they must be signed.  But because the law is very specific that we must check to see that the name of the voter on the inner and outer envelopes must be for the correct voter, we need to do what we can to see if the name is different.  (e.g. if a husband and wife somehow put their votes in the wrong envelopes, then the votes do not count.  If both their votes are in one outer envelope, only the one that matches the outer envelope counts).

The counters count the inner and outer envelopes.  When the count does not match what I counted on the delivery from the registrars, I don’t tell them the original count – I just tell them it does not match and they have to count again – it all balance after no more than two counts for each pile.

Over the course of processing, I reject perhaps 6-8 ballots.  Most are straight-forward decisions because the ballot was in the outside envelope but not in the internal envelope. (A little surprising, the frequency of this particular error).  Three interesting decisions.  One ballot has a different first and last name on the inside envelope and the hand written return address, than the official voter name printed on the outside envelope – rejected.  One inside envelope says that it needs to be hand counted as there are corrections – I rule it has to be mixed with other ballots and we need to make an independent decision on how to count it – otherwise we could know which ballot corresponded to a particular voter.  The counters show me a ballot with some votes crossed out with a ‘NO’ and others substituted – it would have not have been problem, but the voter initialed the ‘NO’ – I ruled it could not be counted because it had identifying marks. (Connecticut is a “Voter Intent State”). There were a couple of other rather unique ballots, but since all the marks had to do with canceling some votes, according to my interpretation of the law, they should be counted.

We could have easily missed an overvote and left it to be machine counted.  The counters went back and reviewed some ballots again and found some overvotes they missed.  In the end we hand counted a dozen or so votes by hand and none of those to be scanned were rejected by the scanners.

At about 5:45 pm, the registrars  arrive with four more absentee ballots.  They say that that is it!  We can now go full speed ahead to finish the job.  We process the envelopes and then the ballots.  The counters hand count all the ballots that we have identified as needing hand counting, by hashmarking on a pre-printed sheet for each district.  The counters ask me to make some decisions on the hand counting of individual votes on the ballot.  I call Judi to say we are ready to scan.

Judi arrives and talks me through setting up and opening the first district on each scanner and their closing.  I was going to go through the steps in the manual, but instead followed Judi’s direction – having done it once for real, I can do all the rest without problems or checking the manual.  I find it much simpler actually doing the steps than it seems when reading about them.  Judi says to call her once we are ready to complete all of the paperwork.

We bring all the ballots to be read by the machine and the memory card pouch to each machine, deal with it and them move the district back to the tables.  Before each district is scanned we print three zero tapes.  After all ballots are scanned we print three totals tapes and empty the ballot bins.  On the second district counted, at first we see no ballots.   We pull out the scanner and open the top and find they are all stopped by a small ridge – but, because it is about 50 ballots, there is no jam.  We check that ridge from below for every subsequent district.

The smallest part of the process is the scanning which is accomplished by two officials at each scanner.  The critical factor is my time – the moderator must setup the machine, unseal and reseal memory cards, print and sign six tapes for each district (the printers are slow, especially considering the three copies).  I find myself going back and forth frequently half-way across the room between the two machines and the waiting officials.  Next time I would put the machines closer, but not too close to risk districts being mixed up. (Here is where my personality comes into play – I tend to rush to keep the counters busy – Here is where I need to be especially sure that I am deliberate).

Why three copies of the tapes?  One is the copy for the moderator’s report – the last zero tape copy is is connected to the first closing copy with the vote counts.  Another copy is posted on the wall.  Another copy goes into the bag with the memory card.

At one point in the process one team points out that I printed four copies not three for one district.  I crunch that one up.  Later in looking at the wall that same team asks me why there are three zero tapes for their districts but only one count tape.   One has yet to be printed out – the other is the crumpled tape which we unravel and sign.  The final tapes are posted on the wall after 8:00, for public observers who are allowed to observe the counting, but not close enough to determine any results before the polls close.  Since we are counting with scanners and so few votes are counted by hand, it would be easy to prevent anyone from knowing the results.  Nobody from the public comes to watch.  As far as I can tell nobody comes to see the tapes to report results to the party.

I find the memory card bags very interesting.  They are tough clear plastic, perhaps 7″x9″.  They have a slot for a paper card for recording seal numbers, my name, date etc.  They have a very interesting zipper and plastic seal arrangement that seems a bit better than the usual plastic seal – just a bit of a challenge to remove two little plastic parts left after breaking the seal that must be removed before applying the new seal.  In addition to the memory card, they contain the pre-election test tape.  I add one copy of the zero tape and one copy of the count tape.  I pick a new seal, write its number on the paper card, place the paper card in the slot inside the bag – visible outside but sealed in.  I close the zipper and apply the seal.

Oooooooooops.  We close the last district scammer.  I pack the scanners in their bags.  Opening the top of one of the machines, it has four ballots stuck in a ridge atop the write-in bin.  We processed write-ins through the machine as there were no valid write-in candidates (votes double votes for a candidate by the usual bubble and/or write-in were hand counted).  But on that one machine, apparently the 1st write-in ballot hung up and the others ended up on top of it.  (Next time I will open the top of the ballot box every time, after each district).

Here is where being logical and surfacing, not hiding problems is important.  Since all ballots are the same in every district it is questionable which district the ballots belong with. Reviewing the four write-in ballots, I see that two ballots only have write-ins for the town council and the other two only for the board of education.  The tapes show the town council write-ins are all in one district so those two ballots can be filed with that district.  Unfortunately, the write-ins for board of education are split between two other districts and the vote counts on the rest of the two ballots are different, so we cannot classify them into a district. We keep them separate and I write a note explaining the problem.  If there is a recanvass or a recount then the totals will need to be combined for the two districts for the purpose of comparison.  Later, Judi will have us rubber band all the ballot envelopes for each district, and rubber band the two districts together with the two write-in ballots between.

The next morning I learn that there will be a racanvass based on a close margin between the lowest winning town council seat and the highest losing seat.  I rest peacefully believing that I handled this correctly.  (But I learn the newspaper reports were wrong – Judi emails me that the candidates are farther apart than initially reported in the paper – there will be no recanvass) .  Yet, part of me knows its easy to make a logical error in handling a situation like this, especially for others with less focus on the details of vote counting or with less of a logical bent – and its always possible that there is some mistake that one of us made that we have yet, if ever, to realize or be discoverd.  There is a lot to get right and a lot to coordinate for the moderator – with the toughest, most detailed part at the end of the night.  Starting at 1:00pm rather than 5:00 am, I am more rested than any polling place moderator.

I call Judi on her offer to help with the paperwork.  For each district I read the hand counts and the tape, while she fills in the form and adds the two numbers.  She reminds me to let the counters do the rest of the work, sealing  and signing envelopes and bring us one district at a time.  In the process there are some envelopes mixed up by district and we have to straighten that out.  I also do the paper work by district reconciling the absentee ballot envelopes delivered with the ballot count by hand, plus machine count, plus rejected – I am a little surprised and greatly relieved that for each of the six districts, everything balances perfectly the 1st time.  After some of districts are complete Judi calls in one of the young officials to replace her, to help me complete the rest of the districts.

I also do the paper work reconciling the envelopes delivered with the ballot count by hand, plus machine count, plus rejected ballots by district – I am a little surprised that for each of the six districts, everything balances perfectly the 1st time.  This is where every step done correctly, every bit of organizing by district and keeping things straight paysoff.  If anything is out of whack then it is a lot of recounting by hand, just when everyone is tired and anxous to go home – the last thing you want to do is have to recount and reconcile when you are tired and think you are done.  This is where experience is a great, yet very expensive teacher – I am lucky to have Judi available for my 1st time – this would be unusual for a polling place moderator except in an a single district town.

We pack everyting up and head downstairs to the registrars’ office.  Judi reads the counts and a young official types them into a spreadsheet.  He prints the page.  I read the totals from the paper work again and another young official checks the printed sheet.  We find one error of one vote which is quickly corrected in the spreadsheet.

What would I do differently next time?  I would pull the scanner and check the bins from the top after each district was scanned.  I would make up the envelopes for each district ahead of time (Judi gave me pre-printed sheets to attach to the envelopes).  I would keep all the totals for each envelope on stickies on the labels until we were sure we had the final counts, so that I would not have to replace the labels.  I would have a talk with my team at the beginning and explain two things:  1) The importance of keeping each district completely separate and maintaining that separation without fail – we had a couple of close calls;  2) The potential for boredom, especially at the end – there are many critical steps for the moderator that require concentration and the rest of the team may have nothing to do.  Next time I would consider having the counters do the forms and totaling while I supervised and later re-checked their work. Having done the process once, with help from Judi, it would be much easier for me next time.

My official role was complete. As I left, I believe, I overheard that the first polling place moderator was arriving with results, ballots and paperwork  for checking.

PS: My next stop was party headquarters in my own town about twenty minutes away.  When I arrived they had all the results available, except the absentee results.  They likely got the results from each polling place before the moderator packed up and left for town hall.  But where were the absentee ballot results?  A couple of the races were close.  The results came in at about 10:30 pm.  Soon, one of the counters from the absentee ballot team arrived.  I asked her what happened? Why did it take so long?  She said they did not get the final absentee ballots until very close to 8:00 pm and did not start scanning until shortly after 8:00 pm.  That pretty much explained it all to me – why it took until 10:30 pm.  They did nine districts in perhaps 1/2 hour less than we did in Vernon.  Now, I am left wondering where the process is differnent in the two towns between the post offices, town clerks, and registrars in the timing of the availablity of the final set of absentee ballots?  In the grand scheme of things, 10:30 pm is not that long to wait for final results.  Especially knowing the team is one mixup or transcription error away from quite a bit of delay and extra work at the end of the day.

Secretary of the State’s Letter To Senator Schumer RE: Premier, ES&S

“We are concerned that this transaction will unduly stifle competition across the country and for Connecticut in a number of significant ways.”

Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz and Deputy Secretary Lesley Mara have sent the following letter to Senator Schumer relative to the Premier acquisition by ES&S.

October 26, 2009

The Honorable Charles Schumer
Chairman
Committee on Rules and Administration
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

RE:  Sale of Diebold’s voting machine business, Premier Election Solutions, Inc. to Election Systems & Software Inc.

Dear Senator Schumer:

Thank you for the opportunity to share our concerns with you and the Committee regarding the sale of Premier Election Solutions, Inc. (“Premier”) to Election Systems and Software, Inc. (“ES&S”).  We greatly appreciate your leadership in this important area and your recognition that this country’s election systems must be rigorously safeguarded.

We are concerned that this transaction will unduly stifle competition across the country and for Connecticut in a number of significant ways.  First, for those states looking for new machines, there will be fewer vendors from which to choose, potentially driving up the cost of purchasing new machines and giving the states less leverage in demanding high standards of quality, especially with respect to transparency and security issues.

Second, once machines are purchased, this transaction can negatively affect the quality of ongoing service contracts with the states, contracts that include ongoing preventive maintenance of the machines and other services.  Since ES&S offers a product that competes with the Premier product purchased by Connecticut, it seems unlikely that ES&S will dedicate sufficient resources and development energies to the extent necessary to support two distinct products.  It seems much more likely that ES&S will devote the majority of its resources to its own present product line to the detriment of those customer states across the country that currently use the Premier product.

Finally, as ES&S positions itself to dominate the voting machine sales and service industry, it also assumes unfair control of the pace and quality of innovation down the road.  In short, if ES&S is “the only game in town,” then the lack of outside competition  may also impact future product innovation in this industry.

By way of background, the State of Connecticut entered into a contract with Diebold (now Premier) in June, 2006 for the acquisition of optical scan voting machines to replace the state’s lever voting machines.  That contract included the purchase of equipment and accessories, training, on-site support during the first use of the equipment, programming of memory cards and ongoing maintenance.  Our contract expires on December 31, 2026.

We conducted our first statewide use of the new equipment in November, 2007 and completed the largest single use of the new voting machines during the historic Presidential election last November.  While that portion of the contract relating to the purchase and delivery of the equipment has been implemented, we have a strong interest in maintaining quality, ongoing service and maintenance of the product we have purchased for the seventeen (17) years that remain on our contract.

One provision in Connecticut’s contract with Premier requires Premier: (1) to address security vulnerabilities identified in a report by the University of California at Berkeley specifically entitled: “Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuBasic Interpreter,”and (2) to provide Connecticut with any upgrade(s) addressing those vulnerabilities at no additional cost.  Those upgrades were supposed to have been provided within one year and that deadline has now passed.  Although Premier has received EAC certification for a new version of its product that it may claim addresses the issues contained in the subject report, the upgrades have not been offered to Connecticut for review.  Now that ES&S has acquired Premier, we are concerned that ES&S may not dedicate the technical and other resources necessary to fulfill this provision in a timely way.

At the same time we chose optical scan voting machines in 2006, we also entered into a contract with IVS, LLC to provide one accessible voting machine at each polling place in the state.  The “Vote-By-Phone” system uses a special telephone at each polling place to allow voters to cast their ballots.  We specifically entered into a year-to-year arrangement for this product because it was, and remains, our goal to find a more permanent solution.  Ultimately, we want a ballot that can be fed into the optical scan voting machine – the vote-by-phone ballots look different and must be hand counted separately.  While the vote-by-phone system is especially helpful for persons who are sight-impaired or blind, we hope that a future technology can accommodate even more disabilities, including providing sip-and-puff options, foot pedals and other features to expand the usefulness and accessibility of the machines.

In anticipating a future Request for Proposal for accessible voting machines, both ES&S and Premier have traditionally offered ballot marking devices that might meet the state’s business requirements.  It was also our understanding that Premier was conducting its own research and technical development to offer a new product that might be even more attractive to customers.  With the acquisition of Premier by ES&S, one vendor is lost to this process and it seems likely that Premier’s innovation and research into any new product will be lost as well.  This transaction will result in fewer vendors participating in the RFP process in Connecticut, with the attendant consequence that the state will have less leverage in negotiating for the best possible price.  Further, as previously mentioned, this dynamic may stifle the innovation that could lead to more efficient machines.

Thank you again for conducting a thorough review of this transaction and its impact on election systems across the country.  It is imperative that competition be maintained to provide optimal opportunities for states to purchase voting machines that are cost-effective and machines that ensure transparency, auditability, security and accuracy.  A more concentrated voting machine industry jeopardizes such competition and places states at a disadvantage in fulfilling their responsibilities to the voters they serve.

Please do not hesitate to contact this office if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Susan Bysiewicz
Secretary of the State

Lesley D. Mara
Deputy Secretary of the State

Earlier coverage of the acquisition <here> <here>