By Luther Weeks on May 13, 2017
Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill , said,“The rationale for this commission was articulated in a baseless tweet from the president that claimed millions of illegal votes were cast. The facts don’t lie. Voter fraud is extremely rare. Yet time and again, the specter of voter fraud has served as an excuse to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters. I hope that this investigation is not a fig leaf for voter suppression and intimidation. In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”
This reminds us of the Bush era witch hunt in the Justice Department for voter fraud. Several attorneys were let go because they could not find or refused to continue hunting for all but non-existent fraud.
We do question Secretary Merrill’s statement that “In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”
Posted in CT, National, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on March 19, 2017
Georgia and Cobb election officials are rejecting calls from advocacy groups for voters to use paper ballots while the FBI investigates a data breach at Kennesaw State University.
Voters will continue to use electronic voting machines during upcoming elections, said Candice Broce, spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. The use of paper ballots is reserved as a backup system in case there is a problem with the voting machines, she said…
Earlier this month, KSU announced a federal investigation at the Center for Elections Systems located on the Kennesaw campus to determine if there was a data breach that might have affected the center’s records, according to Tammy DeMel, spokesperson for the university.
When will they ever learn? We firmly believe that the days of paperless elections are coming to an end. It may take a few more years, yet we believe it is unlikely that any jurisdiction in the U.S. well make a major purchases of paperless voting equipment in the future. The useful life of most paperless equipment will end within the next decade or so.
Posted in Electronic Vulnerability, National, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on February 1, 2017
Several instructive articles and events this week.
- Last week, Secretary of the State and President of NASS (National Association of Secretaries of State) held a press conference discussing Donald Trump’s allegations of 3 Million “Illegals” Voting. Secretary Merrill Challenges President’s Reported Claims of Illegal Voting
- Meanwhile, at least, Connecticut is no Kansas: The Kansas Model for Voter-Fraud Bluffing
- Here an article I generally agree with from Forbes: What The Election Can Teach Us About Cybersecurity
- Speaking of attacks on voter databases here is a story from this fall: Hackers hit Henry County voter database
Posted in CT, Electronic Vulnerability, National, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on January 7, 2017
The Department of Homeland Security has designated Election Infrastructure as Critical Infrastructure. We ask three questions. We would like to see evaluations in Connecticut.
We emphasize the ‘see’ as secret evaluations would do little to provide the public assurance, and likely as not, would be available one way or another to those bent on using them to exploit weaknesses in the system.
Posted in CT, National, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on November 6, 2016
! W A R N I N G !
Do not wait till the last minute. Do not wait to the last hour. Get there early if you want to use Election Day Registration!
NOTE: This is also a tale of how elections work in a state with a Secretary of the State with limited powers over underpaid, and occasionally resistant/obstinate local registrars. (The same registrars who are often cited by state officials as the reason we will have no problems in our elections this year. Read here how they handle their joint responsibility.)
Posted in CT, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on November 3, 2016
Lately the news is filled with Donald Trump saying the election is rigged and with election officials and others saying that is impossible. We continue to disagree with both. As we have said:
The truth is that there is no more or less risk to elections this year than in the recent past. The bad news is that the risks of election skullduggery are significant and do not come only from one adversary.
So, lets annotate a recent Op-Ed in the Hartford Courant: Nothing Rigged About American Elections
Posted in National, NonScienceNonsense, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on October 25, 2016
One AP story, two different versions in the Connecticut Post and the Hartford Courant.
As we said in our comment on the Connecticut Post article:
Connecticut has this other thing called the Constitution. It is even available at the Secretary’s website. It says: “The right of secret voting shall be preserved.”, which would likely be interpreted as not taking a picture of your ballot such that you could prove how it was voted. Otherwise votes could easily be bought, sold or intimidated. http://www.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?q=392288
Posted in CT, National, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on October 20, 2016
Obviously it was only incompetence and likely fraud, unless officials are mistaken. Indiana official: Altered voter registrations raise concerns
******Update: Clarified? It could also be a witch hunt
Posted in Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on September 13, 2016
From Freedom to Tinker, Andrew Appel: Security against Election Hacking – Part 1: Software Independence <read>
We have heard a lot lately about the vulnerabilities of our elections to hacking. Both cyberhacking and unsophisticated insider attacks. Andrew Appel describes some common sense approaches to detect and deter error and fraud in our elections, covering three major vulnerabilities:
- Incorrect or unavailable poolbooks.
- Voting machines
- Accumulation of results across polling places and jurisdictions
Posted in Chain of Custody, CT, Electronic Vulnerability, National, Post-Election Audits, Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on August 22, 2016
A new report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, articulates some of the risks of losing the the Secret Ballot: Secret Ballot At Risk: Recommendations for Protecting Democracy <Exec Summary> <Report>
We recommend reading the Executive Summary and at least the section of the report covering the history of and the need for the secret ballot, pages 4-9 and the section for your state, e.g. Connecticut pages 54-55.
Our only criticism is that the report does not cover the risks to the secret ballot and democracy posed by photos, most often seen in selfies of voters with the voted ballot taken in the voting booth. Nor does it cover the risks to the secret ballot posed by absentee voting.
Posted in CT, CT Law, Electronic Vulnerability, Reports, Skulduggery and Errors
