Author: Luther Weeks

Testimony – Nowalk Public Hearing

I testified for about ten minutes in two segments, one formal and one informal, at the Government Administration and Elections Committee Public Hearing in Norwalk. A separate blog on this site covers the flow as testimony at the Norwalk hearing, another the earlier Norwich hearing. Yesterday, I completed an expanded version of my testimony covering the issues I raised in a little more depth, two or three additional issues, along with some references. My complete testimony is available <here in .pdf> and below in html:

The Table of Contents:

The material up to and including “Summary Of Originally Prepared Testimony” is a slightly expanded version of my prepared remarks. Following that are items discussed informally or not covered verbally in the hearing.

One Change For The Better

Continue reading “Testimony – Nowalk Public Hearing”

Norwalk GAE Hearing

Testimony submitted and posted at GAE site.

Once again I have been procrastinating a bit in writing up the Norwalk GAE Public Hearing held last Thursday. The tone of the hearing was much different than the one in Norwich. This blog has a separate entry with my formal testimony.

In Norwich, for the most part, testimony was given by registrars, advocates, and citizens all criticizing aspects of the voting system, voting process, or suggesting improvements. There was no set time limit on speakers, however, most stayed under five minutes and one was asked to finish up after about that time. I am used to hearings at the Capitol with many speakers and a three minute limit, strictly enforced with the aid of an hour glass.

Continue reading “Norwalk GAE Hearing”

Talk Nation Radio – Fix Security Issues By Nov

Another excellent Talk Nation Radio <read listen>

Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, Professor Alex Shvartsman, Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara, and Connecticut Registrars discuss problems with the voting machines and security protocols set up to use them. The Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara reported nineteen voting machine failures last year, but at least some failures were not on her list because they were not reported. That was the case in the Republican Party stronghold of New Canaan, where ROV Bob Shafter and ROV George Cody were in disagreement about events at the polls…

We speak with Connecticut registrars of voter from New Canaan where a voting machine broke down in 2007 and LHS guided a mid election repair. The malfunction was not reported to the Secretary of the State. Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara discusses problems from recent state funded memory card study and promises to do more education to get registrars to contact proper authorities when failures occur, and the lead researcher on the state’s memory card study goes over problems with vendor, LHS, and what happens when voting machines fail…

There have been problems with the memory cards for the state’s voting machines and problems with the vendor, LHS Associates, since 2006. Connecticut’s Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, a Democrat, has yet to bring the full power of her office to bear to solve them. She downplayed serious problems that cropped up on Super Tuesday even as the state’s voting machine security expert Alexander Shvartsman was trying to explain the troubling results of a study of the memory cards from the 2007 state and municipal election. And as public hearings go on, more problems and issues with the voting machines are coming out.

For Those Who Long For Lever Machines

Update: Bloomberg Charges ‘Fraud’ in NYC Primary, But Believes ‘No Legal Issue at Stake’  <Brad Blog Summary>

So if we have all of that straight, the NYC Mayor’s office confirmed they believe there was “fraud” at work in the city’s Primary Election, but don’t believe there are any “legal issues at stake.” Interesting position…

How the anti-Election Integrity folks who control the front page at the Daily Kos will have to twist and contort themselves to cover this news is beyond us

Original Post: Continue reading “For Those Who Long For Lever Machines”

71 Polling Places Selected For Audit – Bysiewicz Announces Voting Board

71 Districts were selected today in a random drawing for the Presidential Primary post-election audits. Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz also announced the formation of a Voting Security and Accessibility Board. <read>
Secretary Bysiewicz with CTVotersCount member Melinda Valencia

Secretary Bysiewicz with
CTVotersCount member

Melinda Valencia

ten percent of the polling precincts used in the election are subject to an audit. All told, 702 polling precincts were used on February 5th – Super Tuesday – meaning that 71 precincts will have their election results audited…

As part of her commitment to enhance the security and accessibility of Connecticut’s elections, Secretary Bysiewicz also announced the formation of the Voting Security and Accessibility Board. The board will be composed of national and state leaders and will explore opportunities to enhance Connecticut election security and accessibility at all the polls. It will also enable the board to learn best practices from other states and perhaps share our practices with them.

We will provide more information on the Board as it becomes available.

In the meantime we have sorted the list of districts to be audited by municipality:

Looks like Branford, Bridgeport and New Britain got more than average while Hartford and Stamford were not selected at all this time.

Continue reading “71 Polling Places Selected For Audit – Bysiewicz Announces Voting Board”

Norwich GAE Hearing

Testimony submitted and posted at GAE site.

Update: Testimony of Beth Angel, East Hampton <read>

in my hometown, East Hampton, at the last municipal election. The results of the election required a recount effort, which ended up necessitating 3 recounts. Each recount delivered differing results from the initial count after the November 6 election. Those who were in attendance reported these irregularities.

  • At the first recount, the moderator walked into the main counting room carrying 70 ballots in his arms and UNSECURED
  • At the second recount, envelopes were already open and distributed without the public present
  • At the third recount the same moderator came in with 117 ballots, again in an UNSECURED envelope
  • I understand from the law all ballots must be secured after the vote, prior to and after any recounts and audits
  • While they counted the ballots in the room with the public audience
  1. no members of the public were allowed to observe the actual ballots including the hashing or counting process and
  2. when it came time to total each candidates’ vote hashes, the moderator (D) and the Republican registrar went into a back room outside of public observation. I repeat, totaling of votes was done out of the public eye
  • We voters want to be sure the people who were actually elected by the voters of our town are sitting on our Town Council.
  • Finally ballots were impounded because of citizen complaints filed with the SEEC due to irregularities observed.
  • All of the above information is part of several citizen complaints…

Original Post:

Two articles in the Day on the hearings <read> <read> also commented on at by greenpeas at MyLeftNutmeg.I have been a bit busy working on my own testimony for the hearing coming up tomorrow in Norwalk. I am an activist and a blogger, not a reporter. At the Norwich hearing I took some notes while I spent most of my time listening to the testimony. But there is plenty to add that was not covered in these two articles and one correction. (I don’t blame the reporters, this is an aspect of protecting democracy that is more important than the details of tax law or defense contracts, yet not nearly as interesting. to many). I wish I could be more detailed which is precluded by time and my reporting abilities, but at least I will be able to touch on some of the additional issues.

Continue reading “Norwich GAE Hearing”

Two Companies’ False Statements – Should Both Be Of Concern?

Company #1 keeps some of us warm: Breaks the law and hides information from consumers.

Company #2 is the state’s sole source for maintaining our democracy: Previously under SEC and DOJ investigation, now admits hiding financial woes.

This is the second time in recent months that utilities have been caught red handed and the second time we note the irony in voting systems suppliers getting a pass.

#1 Connecticut Natural Gas

The Hartford Courant has been covering the story of improper billing by CNG, now getting scrutiny from the Attorney General and the DPUC. <read>

Under increasing public pressure and a looming public investigation, Connecticut Natural Gas officials admitted Monday that they had sent fabricated bills to 2,600 customers in 13 central Connecticut towns.

In a written report to state public utility regulators, CNG officials also admitted that they have known about the problem — caused by three meter readers making up low readings in October and November — since mid-January…

CNG said in the cover letter accompanying its five-page filing that it notified the DPUC on Feb. 1 about the problem — the day after I called the company to tell them I was writing a column.

State regulators, however, failed to disclose that conversation to me, or the public. CNG said in its cover letter it was simply told to file a written report…

“There needs to be a dramatic lesson” taught, Blumenthal said. He said CNG’s letter smacks of “Oops, you caught us and now we will follow the law. That is business as usual.”

“This is one of the more astonishing aspects of this [CNG] communication,” said state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, adding that someone should investigate “what the DPUC knew, when it knew it and what it did about it.”

#2 Diebold Premier

Brad Blog has the latest installment on Diebold Election Systems Premier Election Solutions woes. The company we have contracted for our voting systems, already under investigation by the SEC and DOJ, now admits to overstating revenue by a mere 300% – to lay off 800 employees. <read>

  • What will happen to our election systems if Premier cannot support them or goes bankurpt, and cannot support LHS in meeting Diebold’s obligations?
  • Can we expect memory card quality control to increase as Premier sheds employees?
  • Is it possible that Premier is in breech of paragraph 2.3 of its contract, as suggested by one advocate at last night’s GAE public hearing in Norwich?
  • Should the CT DAS undertake its own audit of Premier under the provisions of paragraph 7 of the contract.
  • Should our constitutional officers in Connecticut be concerned?
[Premier/Diebold] admitted last week that they had over-estimated revenues of their election system division by more than 300%.As well, the company announced they will soon be laying off 5% of their full-time global workforce. The restatement of revenues comes as part of a deal worked out with the SEC, which continues its ongoing investigation into the financial practices of the once-great, now-disgraced company. Diebold also acknowledges that they are still being investigated by the DOJ, although the reasons and details of that particular investigation remain undisclosed at this time…

The 50% decrease in the company’s share price began just after a number of company executives sold off several thousand shares of stock, all on the same day in August of last year…

According to the statement, the earlier 2007 estimate for revenue from their election division was $185 to $215 million. The newly revised estimate for 2007 election business is just $61 million, revealing their original numbers were inflated by 300-350%.

The admission also reveals that estimated election system revenue for the company is down some 69% from 2006.

Public Input Sought On New Voting System

Stamford Advocate discusses Public hearings starting next week. <read> See the schedule our our Calendar.

“We’ve got to do everything humanly possible to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. I think it’s incumbent upon us to be vigilant and seek information from the public,” said state Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, chairman of the General Assembly’s Government Administration and Elections Committee. “We don’t want to go in with any predetermined conclusions, we want to hear the pros and the cons.”…

“What I find most troubling is that there is nothing statutorily requiring the secretary of state to count the number of ballots distributed to each municipality and check the number of votes cast against how many ballots are left over at the end of the night,” [Rep. Caruso] said…

“The concern is that because there’s a computer, someone can hack into it, but with a paper trail, if someone were to manipulate it, you could always open the back and count the ballots,” [Town Clerk Andy] Garfunkel said.

Comments On The Presidential Primary

Update: According to the Journal Inquirer <read>

Bysiewicz said there were relatively few problems with the new optical scan voting machines. Six out of the 825 devices used across the state had to be replaced with back-ups. Two jammed and three were not properly programmed, she said

Sounds to me like they were not properly pre-election tested as well. Unless it was some very odd circumstance that happened three times?

********

We tend to comment on electronic voting issues on this site with an emphasis on integrity and confidence in the election results and that every vote is counted (and none extra). Yet, even the issues of privacy booths and machine tender location provide instructive irony.

Connecticut, So Far

Although there were some problems on election day, we have not yet experienced many of the situations we have read from around the country. For example: <here>, <here>, <here>, and <here>. Unfortunately, we are all in this together – our President, our Senate majority, and our House majority is dependent on every state’s election system. Every voter disenfranchised anywhere counts against our vote and our democracy.

No matter what else we might say it is clear we are better off with optical scan equipment and thankfully avoided DREs. Let us all recall the historic reversal by our Secretary of the State – we are not against politicians changing their minds – in fact, we spend most our time with them urging them to change their minds!

Yet, it is not yet possible to be even close to confident. Memory card problems continue to occur <Dori Smith, TalkNationRadio>, while we await the post-election audits, and work to make those audits sufficient to provide integrity and confidence.

Four Ironies and a Quiz: Continue reading “Comments On The Presidential Primary”

e-Democracy Symposium – Recounting/Auditing By Machine – The Devil Is In The Details

Yesterday I attended the spring symposium at the UConn Law School by the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal: e-Democracy: Democratic Values In A Digital Age. There were three panels:

  • Campaigning On The Web
  • The Mechanics of Voting
  • Political Speech and the Internet

I found all three very interesting. Christine Stuart has an excellent article on the first panel at CTNewsJunkie I completely agree with her highlighting of Tim Tagaris, statement: “It’s Americans with computers, [not 20 somethings]”. The other point that rang true to me was that political blogging leads to personal interaction not isolation. I learned of the panel based on personal contact that was the result of political blogging, that was the result of personal contact that was the result of blogging…

The third panel discussed laws and regulations concerning political contributions, blogging, and the relationship of bloggers to campaigns. The summary was that political blogging is not regulated or restrained because, unlike television, it is open to anyone and thus does not need such regulation. I asked if the panel agreed that all their conclusions were based on “Net Neutrality”? Matt Stoller gave an impassioned response articulating current erosion of net neutrality.

The Second Panel: The Mechanics of Voting

The second panel covered the risks of electronic voting. Some of the issues we cover regularly here. The panelists were:

  • Lawrence Norden, Brennan Center for Justice, lead author of several significant reports on electronic voting. Mr. Norden also has worked to cause New York to make better choices in electronic voting.
  • J. Alex Halderman, Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, and participant in the Diebold portion of the CA Top-To-Bottom Review.
  • Senator Gayle Slossberg, Co-Chair of the Connecticut General Assembly Government Administration and Elections Committee, and one of the authors of our audit bill, PA 07-194.

I appreciate all the panelists and their work for democracy. Also in attendance for the panel: Deputy Secretary of the State, Lesley Mara, several registrars, and more than several town clerks. I also appreciate their taking the time to be involved and informed. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole panel, wishing for more elaboration on some of the points, wishing it was more of a debate that I could join in. I fear that the lack of time, lack of common understanding, and background information between the panelists, and between the panelists and the audience may have left some significant misimpressions. Since I don’t have a transcript, you will have to go with my summary of what was said and of course my own impression of what might have been misinterpreted:

  • I completely agree with Mr. Norden’s statement that there is a lot we can do with what we have in time to improve the security of elections in time for November 2008.
  • I completely agree that Connecticut is much better off with optical scan than we would be with DRE (touch screen) voting equipment. I also agree that we have procedures that are better than those in many other states.
  • However our procedures are woefully inadequate to protect us. A chain-of-custody is only as good as the weakest link. Our procedures are inadequate, by their nature procedures are unenforceable, and have not been enforced. They have been regularly violated in the custody of ballots, audits, and memory card security.
  • Our 10% selection of districts for our post-election audits provides an easy claim to the strictest audit in the Country. That is misleading since the 10% is followed by a secret drawing of three or 20% of races to be audited, the law is full of loopholes, is articulated in inadequate, unenforceable, frequently violated procedures, and has proven in practice to provide no confidence that an error or fraud would be recognized. As Mr. Norden pointed out 10% can be overkill in some cases, unfortunately our audit law for the most part falls far short of the Brennan Center’s standards. Even that 10% is misleading since it is followed by a secret random drawing of three or 20% of races to be actually audited. And further while 10% for a state wide race would often be overkill, it is woefully inadequate to provide deterrence in state legislative races and most municipal races.

Recounting By Machine – The Devil Is In the Details

Once again, as has been the case since the November election we heard calls from officials for recounts by machine rather than hand counting. We also heard, once again, from Senator Slossberg that the Legislature may consider changing from manual recounts to machine recounts.

Here is where I saw the possibility of a large gap in understanding and context that may lead to misinterpretation of some of the remarks of the speakers.

In answer to a question of mine to Mr. Norden, where I asked how recounts by similar machines with similar memory card could discover problems, he answered that is was possible in cases where the machine used in the election was adjusted incorrectly or scanning incorrectly. I fear this may have left an impression with some that recounting by machine was fine. However, his answer, while technically accurate, has no relevance to catching errors or fraud having to do with software in the computer or in the memory card. Those would not be detected by running the same votes through properly setup, identically functioning computers and memory cards. In addition, if a variance were found based on an improperly functioning scanner, the question would then be which machine was more accurate – the original or the second one?

In his opening remarks Mr. Halderman mentioned that is was possible to recount and audit by reading votes through a new scanner and manually counting some votes, while saving huge sums of money, and in some cases reducing the actual hand counting to as low as 1 vote in 10,000. I agree. Yet, how many in the audience understood that he was talking about a completely different type of scanner, one that is not available commercially today. Yes, we could count and audit at a much lower cost with much more confidence – in fact the same type of technology could likely be used for the initial counting and avoid the second scanning (but the not the manual sample) altogether. The important point to understand is that this is not what is on the table in Connecticut at this time, when election officials, the Secretary of the State and the Legislature discuss recounting by machine.