Amid charges of voting integrity lapses around the country, the Connecticut General Assembly is on its way to weakening, our already weak post-election audits. The Senate has already passed substitute S.B. 252. Please call your State Representative and ask them not to make that same mistake. Find your rep and their contact info at: https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/cgafindleg.asp Tell them:
As a concerned constituent, I urge you to oppose S.B. 252. The committee bill weakens our post-election audits. In a time of public concern with the primary process in several states, we should be strengthening, not weakening our post-election audits.
Call Today. The bill could be called for voting in the House at almost any time!
Details:
For several years CTVotersCount, the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit, and others have been calling for stronger audits. The current audits do not subject all ballots to the potential for audit. The audits are poorly conduced and not reported upon accurately or in a timely manner by the state. (See Citizen Audit reports at: http://CTElectionAudit.org)
In 2015, we offered a compromise bill with several key reforms to strengthen the audits. The bill received uniform supporting testimony by the Registrars Of Voters Association of Connecticut (ROVAC), the Town Clerks Association, and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM).
In 2016, the bill was improved to address some concerns of ROVAC. Yet the improved bill opposed by ROVAC and the Town Clerks. It was labeled as too costly by the Secretary of the State because it would require her office to report comprehensive results publicly. Interestingly, the Secretary is now touting an almost equivalent capability, recently implemented by her office, which has been under development for several years at $400,000+.
Instead of strengthening the audits, the Government Administration and Elections Committee has stripped all the strengthening provisions, leaving only the weakening reform of cutting the audit in half,
