By Luther Weeks on May 14, 2013
In La, apparently there is evidence and no disagreement that fraud occurred. The issue is which campaign did it. Maybe it is both? Absentee voting is a convenience, not just for voters, it really helps fraudsters as well.
Cash strapped New Haven would be a bad place to test early voting in 2013. It is the first competitive election in New Haven in 20 years. Turnout is all but guaranteed to increase – early voting or not – we can predict that early voting would get the credit.
Posted in Legislature2013, Mail/Absentee Voting, National
By Luther Weeks on April 25, 2013
We are getting the annual emails requesting that voters encourage the Connecticut General Assembly to join only eight other states and the District of Columbia that have signed on to the National Popular Vote Agreement/Compact since 2007. There are many reasons to the like the concept of one person one vote, however, there are strong reasons to require that the current system be corrected first, in order that we actually have a fair, credible, and accurate process. Without a trusted, equal, auditable, recountable uniform national election system for President, it is not worth the risks. The devil is truly in the details.
Posted in Legislature2013, National Popular Vote
By Luther Weeks on April 13, 2013
As promised, comments on earlier bills passed through the Government Administration and Elections Committee.
Posted in Internet Voting, Legislature2013, Mail/Absentee Voting, National Popular Vote, Post-Election Audits
By Luther Weeks on April 8, 2013
The Government Administration and Elections Committee met for the last time before its deadline to consider and approve 39 bills. After an hour long Democratic caucus they discussed the bills for about three hours. In honor of the late Roger Ebert we provide graphic summaries of our comments.
Posted in Internet Voting, Legislature2013
By Luther Weeks on March 31, 2013
We are not done in Connecticut, even for this year. Two other bills are still in play. A competing online voting bill, and the UMOVEA bill. The last Committee meeting that can approve bills is Friday April 5th. Perhaps the competing bill will be dropped or also changed to a study. Perhaps the UMOVEA bill was mentioned because it contains provisions to help military vote, but likely not provisions for online voting. Beyond that all bills are subject to dramatic change and consolidation prior to votes by the Senate and House. Like last year, a section authorizing online voting could be stuffed into any other bill by the Committee, even a bill otherwise especially attractive the Governor.
Posted in Internet Voting, Legislature2013
By Luther Weeks on March 26, 2013
Almost all the legislators from both parties made “political hay” (that is intended as a cliche like “fox in the hen house”) out of former and future candidate for Governor, Tom Foley’s testimony on legislative ethics. He admitted authorship of questionable concepts not worded to match his intent. I can only wonder what would happen if all bills were required to identify the author? Would I have tempered my remarks on early voting, had everyone known the source of that inadequate and contradictory text? Would the result be less bills with better text?
Posted in Costs, Legislature2013
By Luther Weeks on March 24, 2013
Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer.
Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any online network really is, and how sophisticated, tenacious and skilled today’s attackers are. Just last week, we learned that the U.S. has already experienced our first-ever documented attack on an election system, when a grand jury report revealed that someone hacked into the Miami-Dade primary elections system in August 2012.
Posted in Internet Voting, Legislature2013, Other Editorials
By Luther Weeks on March 21, 2013
On Wednesday night I participated on a panel in Waterford, CT on Electoral Dysfunction, sponsored by the ACLU, Common Cause and the LWV. It was a very good discussion with a variety of views from the panel, a wide range of excellent questions, and unsurpassed moderation. In the near future we may have video available. I promised to provide more information here on the topics covered.
Posted in CT Law, Instant Runoff Voting, Legislature2013, National Popular Vote, Post-Election Audits
By Luther Weeks on March 17, 2013
Here in the land of steady habits, we are ready to move forward with blinders at the ready, apparently confident that our registrars, town clerks, and state IT department will never discover any attacks on on our voting systems, email systems, or fax machines.
Posted in Internet Security Issues, Legislature2013
By Luther Weeks on March 12, 2013
All of these bills are well intended. In fact, I would support most of the concepts, yet in only a single case could I support one of these bills , based on huge gaps between the good intent and the actual details present and missing in those bills.
Posted in Chain of Custody, Electronic Vulnerability, Legislature2013, Post-Election Audits
