By Luther Weeks on June 4, 2019
Or are they dumber than we think?
No matter what you think about early voting, we find one argument by Senator Looney and Senator Flexer in a recent editorial completely irrelevant and misleading.
Posted in Legislature 2019, Mail/Absentee Voting, Our Editorials
By Luther Weeks on April 11, 2019
This year I submitted testimony on a total of twenty-three bills. Fortunately, many were easy for us to understand and quite redundant. The General Elections and Administration Committee passed a total of one-hundred and eighteen bills. To me, they should have been much more selective in choosing bills to hear and those to pass. Although most of my testimony opposed bills, some of it was followed by the Committee. We are pleased to support seven bills passed by the Committee and oppose eight.
Posted in Legislature 2019, Our Editorials
By Luther Weeks on April 8, 2019
I recently read Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. I could not put it down. Not surprising since it has been on the NYTimes best seller list for months and its the only book I have noticed on Amazon with a full five star rating – with currently just over two-thousand reviews. But for me it was more than that. It brought back memories of a good portion of my career in the eighties and nineties, along with my last fifteen years concerned with electronic voting.
All reminiscent of Kurt Andersen’s book: Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. To me, just like the California Gold Rush, minus the gold.
Posted in Blockchain, Legislature 2019, National
By Luther Weeks on March 29, 2019
While the General Assembly contemplates how Blockchain might solve some undefined problem in our voter registration system, we point to a National Academy of Sciences study Securing the Vote, Protecting American Democracy:
The blockchain abstraction, once implemented, provides added points of attack for malicious actors…Furthermore, blockchain protocols generally yield results that are a consensus of the miners/stakeholders. This consensus may not represent the consensus of the voting public. Miners/stakeholders with sufficient power might also cause confusion and uncertainty about the state of a blockchain by raising doubts about whether a consensus has been reached.
Posted in Blockchain, Legislature 2019
By Luther Weeks on March 26, 2019
Yesterday the GAE Committee is hearing testimony on another raft if bills. I spoke on four pieces of testimony on five bills. What brings them together is that they are all but ridiculous and unworkable given existing tried and true election law.
I was not going to testify orally on H.B.7392 as I thought it was so outrageous that everyone would testify against it. Apparently not. Many believe it was just like last year’s bills. It is much worse. In his testimony, Michael Brandi from the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) saw the same problems I saw – it precludes anyone but the Secretary of the State, Registrars and political operatives from seeing voter registration records, not even the SEEC or polling place officials, let alone voter integrity groups. Not surprisingly the media is getting it wrong too (E.g.), since most of the testimony has yet to be posted by the Committee.
Posted in Legislature 2019, Mail/Absentee Voting
By Luther Weeks on March 16, 2019
On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills. I was out of town but submitted testimony on several bills.
The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)
H.R.161 and S.J.27 A good and a not-so-good bill on Early Voting
S.B.1046, S.B.1049, and H.B.6059 One good and a couple of not-so-good Election Day Registration bills. In addition to those previously heard.
S.B.1050 A slightly improved Rank Choice Voting Task Force bill.
Posted in Legislature 2019, Mail/Absentee Voting
By Luther Weeks on March 1, 2019
On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills.
The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)
H.B.5417 A proposed study to use blockchain to solve some undefined problem in voter registration. I opposed, perhaps the only one in the room who is a computer scientist. In summary, if someone wants to sell you or asks you to invest in blockchain – Run. Run fast and keep your eye on your wallet and passwords! …
Posted in Blockchain, CT Law, Instant Runoff Voting, Internet Security Issues, Legislature 2019
By Luther Weeks on February 16, 2019
On Friday the GAE Committee held testimony on a raft if bills. This is just the first hearing, and first wave this year.
There is a risky trend in the last couple of years that bills are sketchy drafts at hearing stage. So there is no detailed text to comment on and correct details and improve. This means that advocates on all sides have little chance to help the General Assembly avoid errors. So, I find myself testifying more about potential improvements at a high level, while trying to anticipate important details to advise on. And I find others providing short general testimony in favor or against rather than detailed suggestions or critiques.
The bills, and links to my testimony:
Posted in Legislature 2019
By Luther Weeks on February 9, 2019
Do you need a public blockchain? The answer is almost certainly no. A blockchain probably doesn’t solve the security problems you think it solves. The security problems it solves are probably not the ones you have. …A false trust in blockchain can itself be a security risk. The inefficiencies, especially in scaling, are probably not worth it. I have looked at many blockchain applications, and all of them could achieve the same security properties without using a blockchain—of course, then they wouldn’t have the cool name.
Posted in Blockchain, Legislature 2019, National
By Luther Weeks on February 5, 2019
Yesterday, the Connecticut House Committee on Contested Elections concluded its work on the contested election in Stratford. They provided two options to the House: Leave the certified winner in office or hold a re-vote. You can read more at CTMirror: House committee deadlocks on disputed Stratford election The CTMirror article includes the final report.
The crux of the issue is that after a recanvass the certified winner was ahead by 13 votes. 75 voters were given the wrong ballot, without that race. The votes counted in the pooling place district favored the loser, in fact if the 75 had voted as the rest of the district, on average the loser would have picked up 12.55 votes, thus on average, all but even odds for each candidate. The crux of the disagreement is around the issue of if that evidence brought the uncertainty of the election in question enough to justify a re-vote.
Posted in CT Law, Legislature 2019
