A new Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project Report provides insight into the opinions of voters on several voting reform issues. We comment on Connecticut specific results and editorialize on voting integrity implications of the survey. We recommend the survey and commentary be contemplated by activists, legislators, and future Secretaries of the State.
“The main conclusion of this analysis is that the hand counting remains an error prone activity. In order to enable a more precise analysis, it is recommended that the hand counting precision is substantially improved in future audits. The completeness of the audit reports also need to be addressed…Submitting incomplete audit returns has little value for the auditing process.”
We should all applaud the unique memory card testing program, yet we must also act aggressively to close the gaps it continues to expose…The good news is that UConn has identified a likely cause of the “junk” data cards. Perhaps a solution is near.
The Coalition noted significant differences between results reported by optical scanners and the hand count of ballots by election officials across Connecticut. Compared to previous audits, the Coalition noted small incremental improvements in the attention to detail, following procedures, and in the chain-of-custody.
In this report, we conclude that the November post-election audits still do not inspire confidence. We find no reason to attribute all errors to either humans or machines.
Monday and Tuesday, the EVT/WOTE Conference was held in Montreal. This tends to be a highly technical conference on potentential voting technologies, security and vulnerabilities in current technology, and related projects. For me it is a mixture of new information relevant voting, interesting technical articles, a time to reflect, and to connect with others involved in causing voting integrity.
An alternative is available that would eclipse Election Day Registration (EDR), while fixing our inaccurate voter registration databases and save government expenses.
Update: New York Times Editorial endorses
We recognize and appreciate that everyone works hard on these programs, performing the audits, and creating these reports including the Registrars, Secretary of the State’s staff, and UConn. We also welcome Secretary Bysiewicz’s committment to solve the problems identified. Yet, we have serious concerns with the credibility of the audits as conduced and their value, as conducted, to provide confidence to the public in the election process.
This week the University of Connecticut VoTeR Center released reports on post-election audits and memory card testing for the November 2008 election. Today we will highlight and comment on the Memory Card Report.
We should all applaud the unique memory card testing program, yet we must also act aggressively to close the gaps it continues to expose.
The United States is one of the few industrialized democracies that place the onus of registration on the voter. In other democracies, the government facilitates voting by taking upon itself the responsibility to build voter rolls of all eligible citizens. Even in the United States, voter-initiated registration did not exist until the late nineteenth century. It was instituted then in many states with the intention of suppressing unpopular voters, especially former slaves and new European immigrants, and it continues to disenfranchise many Americans to this day.
Includes many of the same recommendations in the Principles and Best Practices for Post-Election Audits and expands the scope to include auditing of the whole election process.
