Legislature2011 | CTVotersCount.org

Senate passes risky, expensive online voting bill – Now on consent calendar

Despite opposition by the Secretary of the State and promises to the contrary, the Senate passed S.B.939 with online voting, placing it on the Senate consent calendar.

Despite opposition by the Secretary of the State and promises to the contrary, the Senate passed S.B.939 with online voting, placing it on the Senate consent calendar. Now Section 59 rather than Section 60:

Sec. 59. (Effective from passage) The Secretary of the State shall, within available appropriations, recommend a method to allow for on-line voting by military personnel stationed out of state. The Secretary shall 1830 look at what other states have done to reduce any potential for fraud in on-line voting and determine whether any such state’s on-line voting system could be appropriate for adapted use by this state. Not later than January 1, 2012, the secretary shall, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a of the general statutes, report any progress made toward recommending such a method to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to elections.

For more information see < post on bill status> and <Op-Ed on online voting>.

Update: It has been pointed out to me that the word “recommend” in the amended bill replaces “establish” in the previous version.

Update: It is the law now. Passed by House with debate, but none about the Online voting provision. Only Representative Tim O’Brien voted against.

Op-Ed, Denise Merrill: “Bill Ends Ballot Shortages, Protects Voters”

We agree with Secretary Merrill in strongly supporting passage of the bill. Yet it is insufficient. More is required to recover from similar problems in the future such that all votes are counted initially, followed by time for a full statewide recanvass, when based on corrections to initial results, the tallies become close. We continue to recommend the stronger measures in the Coalition Bridgeport Recount Report.

Update 4/19: Denise Merrill explains the bill on CT-N (about four and a half minutes in <view>
In the interview, she also discusses the primary date change and the National Popular Vote Compact, which we oppose based on serious voting integrity concerns. While there may be no evidence of fraud in the one state that has gone to all absentee balloting, there is plenty of evidence and instances of absentee ballot fraud in several states and it does not increase turnout. Not so long ago our legislature changed the way of delivering absentee ballot applications after several instances of skulduggery right here in Connecticut.
****************
The following Op-Ed by Denise Merrill in the Hartford Courant today:

Bill Ends Ballot Shortages, Protects Voters

By DENISE MERRILL

The Hartford Courant

May 17, 2011

In the early afternoon of Nov. 2, 2010, the unthinkable happened at the secretary of the state’s office in Hartford. A trickle — then a flood — of reports started arriving claiming that a number of polling precincts in Connecticut’s largest city had run out of ballots and long lines of Bridgeport voters were being turned away while officials scrambled to photocopy paper ballots or print new ballots.As the ensuing crisis surrounding one of the closest races for governor in Connecticut’s history played itself out in the national media for the next few days, this disturbing episode also exposed serious weaknesses in our election laws. If we are to fulfill our promise that what happened in Bridgeport must never happen again, these problems need to be fixed.

Connecticut lawmakers have in front of them a bill I proposed in February that, if enacted, will go a long way toward that goal. Last week, the state Senate rose above partisanship and took the courageous step of unanimously passing this bill, “An Act Concerning the Integrity of Elections.” It is in that spirit of cooperation that I now ask my former colleagues in the House to do the same before the end of the legislative session.

When we looked at what happened in Bridgeport, we found that several communities in Connecticut also ran out of ballots that day, but other towns were prepared. They took decisive, appropriate action: photocopying ballots and promptly distributing them to precincts so voting could continue without interruption. The election integrity bill requires all towns to have an emergency plan for Election Day to cover ballot shortages and other contingencies.

One of the more vexing things I found when I took office as secretary of the state was that this office was unaware of how many ballots had been purchased in each of our 169 cities and towns for Election Day. Under our current law, municipalities are not required to inform the secretary of the state of their pre-election preparations. Our election integrity bill gives municipalities a choice: Either tell us how many ballots they have purchased for the upcoming election, or order enough ballots to cover a 100 percent turnout of registered voters on Election Day.

If, after careful review, our office finds that the number of ballots purchased for Election Day is insufficient or does not take into account factors that could augment turnout (such as a visit by the president of the United States), under this legislation, we would have the authority to direct towns to order more ballots.

I am not proposing to dismantle our election system and start from scratch, nor do I favor a wholesale state takeover of elections. Elections have been run at the local level in Connecticut for more than 200 years, and for the most part our registrars of voters have handled the task well.

Post 2010, we and our partners who administer elections at the local level must prepare and communicate better, and we must all be accountable. If the secretary of the state’s office is truly the chief elections office and everyone looks to us for answers on Election Day, that has to mean something. We need to know how many ballots each town purchases and the factors on which that number is based. It is far better to head off a crisis than to watch helplessly as it unfolds.

The bottom line: No registered voter who wants to cast a ballot on Election Day should ever be turned away from the polls. This is not a political issue — our elections integrity bill has received broad bipartisan support because everyone understands that reliable and secure elections are the essence of our American democracy. That freedom to choose our government is what our military is fighting for overseas.

Let’s not let this historic opportunity to ensure the integrity of our elections slip away.

Denise Merrill is Connecticut’s secretary of the state.

In addition to head moderators, the Secretary of the State should have the power to order discrepancy recanvasses.

Allow more time for the initial reporting of results, investigation of minor discrepancies, and for the accomplishment of recanvasses and the certification of results . There should a timeframe for discrepancy recanvasses, followed by a timeframe for subsequent close vote recanvasses. The current post-election and certification schedule in Connecticut should not be viewed as unchangeable. For example there could be a seven business day window for Discrepancy Recanvasses and their reporting and an additional five business day window for Close Vote Recanvasses to allow for changes in the initial reports resulting from Discrepancy Recanvasses.

Enforceable laws, regulations, and procedures for the accounting for and public verification of the reporting of election results from counting teams, polling place officials, and head moderators, to the Secretary of the State’s Office. Currently district data is transcribed from scanner tapes to district Moderators’ Returns, then in towns with more than one polling place, transcribed and added to the Head Moderator’s Return which is submitted to the Secretary of the State for transcription and summarization on the Secretary’s web site. This is an error prone, difficult to verify process.

Risky, expensive online voting bill moves forward in legislature

Yesterday, after a brief discussion S.B. 939 was passed by the Planning and Development Committee. As we have discussed many times, online voting is risky and expensive.

In the discussion, two representatives expressed concerns with the online voting provided in Section 60. Representative Jason Rojas said that the Senate should consider removing the section as the bill moves forward. Representative William Aman said he would vote for the bill as the Government Administration and Elections Committee were working on improvements to that section.

Update 5/4/2011: Our understanding is that Section 60 will be removed from the bill.

More online voting risks and opportunities for skulduggery

We have been warning of the risks of Internet voting and ignoring science since our founding. Yet, we have overlooked some of the risks, literally right in front of our nose.

Since our founding, we have been warning of the risks of Internet voting and ignoring science. We are currently amazed at our own legislators, risking military voters rights, dismissing the scientific facts and the practical evidence of the impossibility of internet voting. Yet, we have overlooked some of the risks, literally right in front of our nose.

More Risks Right In Front Of Our Nose

An ongoing story starting late last week highlights those dangers. B. F. has a post describing intended or accidental suppression which brought those issues to my attention http://tinyurl.com/3fg2t36 (Note: We use the initials B.F. and a tinyurl intentionally and instructively, just in case you might want to bring this post to the attention of your friends through an email, post, or Facebook link.)

Here is a summary of what happened to B.F.:

If you use an AOL email address, AOL is doing you the favor of making sure you do not receive email containing any links to [B.F.’s site] in it.

Not email from a [B.F. site] address, mind you, as if I were a spammer or something (which, obviously, I’m not), but any email from anybody that has a link to this site, or to one of our news stories.

I learned this swell news early this week when someone was kind enough to let me know that their attempts at sending a link to this site to a friend bounced back to them with an error message. That error message was “HVU:B2”. What is that error?:

* 421 HVU:B2
o There is at least one URL or domain in your e-mail that is generating substantial complaints from AOL members. Resolution will require opening a support request.

That’s right, “substantial complaints” from someone, whatever that means, will result in no links to stories at [B.F.’s site] getting through to any of AOL’s millions of members. And they will never know about it.

Again, these are not even emails from [B.F’s site]. They are simply emails from anybody to any AOL email address which has my domain linked in the body of the email.

Neat, huh? I wonder what would happen if there were “substantial complaints from AOL members” about, say, FoxNews.com? Or MSNBC.com? Or NYTimes.com? Would that result in millions of members not being able to receive any email that links to anything at those sites? Sounds like a great way to [expletive verb] someone you don’t care for politically, doesn’t it?…

So far, I’ve spoken to at least 10 different AOL support people on the phone, since clicking the “support request” URL they offer in the error message seen above actually takes you to someplace on the “AOL Postmaster” that doesn’t actually give you the form you supposedly are to fill out to deal with this issue.

It took a day or two, and several more calls to more very nice AOL tech support people who told me they couldn’t help me in the slightest…

Most ironically, and so that you are open to the interpretation that these are not intended but simply the result of bureaucratic incompetence:

I finally looked up the AOL corporate website online, found the numbers for the “Corporate Media Inquiries” department, figuring I’d either get help or get an on the record comment about this mess and about the fact that AOL is censoring members emails for them, and spoke to another very nice person whom I told about the situation, explained that I was a journalist, not a spammer (and besides the notes being rejected didn’t even need to come from my address to get rejected), mentioned the irony that I even write news for Huffington Post from time to time,

But from personal experience I would call it unintentional arrogance. Over the years, I have put up with similar problems from both AOL and Google:

I am webmaster for a 501.c3 organization that runs annual tournaments for children. Over the years AOL has, to my knowledge, blocked us at least twice. It took some time, each time, to realize this was happening. Both times, I did manage to get through the bureaucracy and get it fixed after some time. Once was because a spammer used some of our email addresses. Another time when a board member sent an email that had some key words in it that had AOL classify our site as a spammer.
A couple of years ago we had problems when a couple of my WordPress sites fell victim to some WordPress vulnerabilities with malware added from sources unknown. Malware with potential for spreading viruses. The good news is that Google informed me and provided tools, so that it could be quickly corrected. But the bad news was that the sites were banned for several weeks from Google search results and provided users with messages that warned of the dangers of my sites.

Withing the last month, a popular news site was hacked and completely taken down such that it had to essentially be rebuilt. And just this weekend another popular reader supported news site sent this message to donors:

We learned that right in the middle of our spring campaign this past week that our secure credit card processor was offline for several hours on a few occasions. Donations were not processing. If you encountered this and gave up, please try again.

So what? What can we learn?

Incidents like these may be intentional, untended, or bureaucratic arrogance.
They point the way to intentional disruption.
They point the way to intentional disruption covered up as unintended, well meant policies. Who is against protection from spam and viruses? Asking users to report concerns?
In cases like AOL’s policies, when users are able to nominate spammers, dangerous, or offensive sites, or email addresses. – these policies can be used by others to assist in their agendas. It would not take any computer expertise. Beyond the simple cases, expert unethical hackers could infect sites and use policies like Google’s to their advantage.
Each of these examples either went unnoticed for several days, took away capabilities for several days once they were discovered, often inadvertently.
No matter how noble the intention or accidental, the result can be disruption and in some cases defamation in what could be a critical time period.
Most of all recognize that these are common occurrences. Much more widespread than the samples that each of us is aware of or listed here.

What does this have to do with online voting and democracy?

Any of these problems , or similar problems, can occur to any web site, any email account, any time – including those associated with voting, campaigns, and news, all vital to democracy.
Voting vulnerabilities include: Online voting, online registration, campaign web sites, campaign emails etc. The impact of such vulnerabilities varies.
Many solutions to speeding military and overseas voting include sending election notification and voting materials by email. These would likely come from a known url and email account, which could be blocked. Presumably any form of online voting would require notification and information be sent electronically, unless overseas voters are expected to find and keep checking the site for upcoming elections and availability of materials.
We all know email is unsafe, vulnerable to hacking and blocking. These vulnerabilities highlight the possibility of easier and unintentional methods of blocking email return of ballots, email used for voter registration, or email communications/questions between voters and election officials.
Voting itself and access by remote military and overseas voters is conducted in very short windows. A site blocked or down for even a day can discourage/disenfranchise someone who has infrequent opportunities for internet access.

Despite the risks we remain in favor of email notification and web access to election materials for military and overseas voting, but the high risk of using the internet, email, or fax for the return of votes is unacceptable.

I agree with our current Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill in her testimony this year:

In the future, it is conceivable that we could move in the direction of online voting.

But the problem is, the technology to make sure no one can hack into an online voting system and distort the vote totals has not yet been developed.

We want to make voting more convenient, but not at the expense of the security or integrity of our elections…

…there is no on-line voting system secure enough to protect the integrity of the vote…

Military Internet voting requirement tucked into “Technical Bill”

If you accept the science that global warming is caused by human activity – you have much more reason to oppose Internet voting.

In the last couple days, the text of bills passed by the Government Administration and Elections Committee in mid March have been posted to the Connecticut General Assembly web.

One item was tucked into S.B. 939 that requires the Secretary of the State to implement Internet voting without a budget increase. The bill was intended, and mostly remains, as a “Technical Bill” to make changes to the statutes to account for the move to optical scan voting. (the bill: S.B. 939) .

1779 Sec. 60. (Effective from passage) The Secretary of the State shall, within
1780 available appropriations, establish a method to allow for on-line voting
1781 by military personnel stationed out of state. In establishing such a
1782 method, the secretary shall look at what other states have done to
1783 reduce any potential for fraud in on-line voting and determine
1784 whether any such state’s on-line voting system could be appropriate
1785 for adapted use by this state. Not later than January 1, 2012, the
1786 secretary shall, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a of
1787 the general statutes, report any progress made toward establishing
1788 such a method to the joint standing committee of the General
1789 Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to elections.

Although the bill mentions that the Secretary “shall look at what other states have done to reduce any potential for fraud in on-line voting and determine whether any such state’s on-line voting system could be appropriate for adapted use by this state” it does not make success in this necessary to the requirement to provide a means for Internet voting. The Secretary has no choice, in my reading, although there is no deadline for completion.

If you accept the science that global warming is caused by human activity – you have much more reason to oppose Internet voting.

If someone believes in Global Warming and that it is caused by human activity because the vast majority of scientists say so, then there is a much much more solid case against Internet voting in any form. I just don’t understand why people believe scientists in one case when in reality the Internet voting case is much stronger:

Claiming Internet voting is safe and accurate violates an undisputed a basic proof of computer science (Turing’s Halting Problem)
In practice no system has been proven safe, the one system subjected to public testing failed with all votes changed. All sorts of computer systems – business, government, and defense – are regularly compromised. <some examples>

I wonder how the Secretary is supposed to implement Internet voting for 169 towns with no budget addition. Other states have paid significantly for Internet voting, while failing or neglecting to prove it safe.

The good news is the current bill only applies to Military voters, not all overseas voters.

The bad news it applies to any Military voters stationed outside Connecticut.

Here is my testimony against the standalone bill proposed and not passed by the Committee:

We oppose online voting, internet voting, email voting, and fax voting in general, for several reasons:

Internet Voting Is Technically Risky: The Computer Technologists Statement on Internet Voting details five technical challenges to such voting that have never been resolved and concludes: “The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiability accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy.”

Internet Voting Has Proven Risky In Practice: In September 2010, Washington D.C. opened their proposed internet voting system to ethical hackers. With very short notice, the system was compromised, changing all past and future votes. Separately, the municipal network was entered, passwords to municipal systems obtained, and the list of codes for Internet voting for all voters in the November election were obtained. Internet voting for the election was canceled. Washington D.C. should be applauded for allowing the test, since other jurisdictions have not subjected their systems to such testing.
https://www.ctvoterscount.org/video-cure-for-internet-voting-warning-viewing-may-case-severe-permanent-einsecurity/

Internet voting can be expensive: West Virginia, about half the size of Connecticut, spent about $75,000 for 54 electronic votes.
http://votingnews.blogspot.com/2010/05/wv-overseas-internet-election-54-votes.html

I oppose this bill in particular because:

It contains no controls, specifications, or requirements for online voting. Would there be any public testing of such systems? Would there be any attempt to address the Technologists’ concerns or prevent problems similar to those in Washington, D.C?

It does not specify if such voting would be the responsibility of individual municipalities or the Secretary of the State.

It provides no funds either for the State or Municipalities to implement.

Could Connecticut accomplish centrally what Washington D.C. has not? Would it be constitutional?

Would each of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities be able to afford such systems and accomplish what Washington D.C. has not?

Would the system be optional by municipality? Different in each municipality? If implemented in only some, would it be unfair, violating Federal civil rights and voting laws?

Please join me and other technologists nationwide in opposing Internet voting.

Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting <read>

PS: I have some other less serious concerns with this bill and another technical bill. In a few days I plan to review and comment on those concerns.

GAE Committee changed title and substance of bill

A “Technical” change to existing statutes becomes a National Popular Vote Agreement.

Earlier this year, the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on a bill, H.B. 6331

Here is how it looked as originally submitted and still showing as the “Raised Bill” on the General Assembly Web <Raised Bill>:

AN ACT CONCERNING TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS TO CERTAIN ELECTION-RELATED STATUTES REGARDING TABULATORS.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

Section 1. Subsections (a) and (b) of section 9-168a of the general statutes are repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof…

This bill was the subject of a public hearing on February 10, 2011 <Agenda>

And here is the “Substitute Bill” that was passed by the committee on April 1st <Agenda> Note the change in the name of the bill on the agenda.<Substitute Bill>

AN ACT CONCERNING AN AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO
ELECT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY NATIONAL
POPULAR VOTE.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General
Assembly convened:

Section 1. (NEW) (Effective from passage) The Agreement Among the
States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote is hereby
enacted into law…

It looks a lot like a bill H.B. 6163 where a public hearing was held on March 11, 2011 <Agenda>

I attended both hearings and the meeting on April 1st. The Committee did debate the National Popular Vote, yet no member noticed/mentioned that they were passing a completely different bill than the bill number on the agenda.

As a final note, currently the Bill Status page remains confused as to the name and the purpose of the bill <read>

AN ACT CONCERNING AN AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE.

To make technical corrections to the elections statutes, including updating the statutes to reflect the current use of voting tabulators.

According to the rules of the General Assembly:

[15.] (b) Hearing Requirement for Favorable Report. Except as provided in Rule 32 (2)(A), no bill and no resolution proposing an amendment to the constitution or other substantive resolution shall be reported favorably by a committee unless a public hearing has been held as provided in Rule 6, but no further public hearing shall be required for a favorable report on a substitute for such bill or resolution, provided the substitute is based on or is germane to the subject matter of the original bill or resolution, or for a bill or resolution petitioned under Rule 11 on which a subject matter public hearing has been held.

I suppose it all depends on how inclusive a definition of “germane” is implied. I understand that similar changes happen regularly.

Courant Op-Ed: Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned of national popular vote risks

We have learned more about voting integrity since the time of Senator Moynihan. It would be even worse than he imagined.

Courant Op-Ed by Chris DeSanctis: NO: Electoral College Votes Should Represent State Voters’ Choice <read>

The op-ed quotes the late New York Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

With a national vote differential of only 500,000 (less than a 0.5 percent) between the two candidates, a national popular vote Electoral College compact would have caused Florida’s problems to appear minor in comparison. Both campaigns would have contested votes state by state, precinct by precinct, looking for a few thousand here and a few thousand there. That struggle would have taken place across America, rather than just in Florida.

The late Democratic senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once remarked about such a circumstance under a national popular vote agreement: “There would be genuine pressures to fraud and abuse. It would be an election no one understood until the next day or the day after, with recounts that go on forever, and in any event, with no conclusion, and a runoff to come. The drama, the dignity, the decisiveness and finality of the American political system are drained away in an endless sequence of contests, disputed outcomes and more contests to resolve outcomes already disputed. That is how legitimacy is lost.” Close presidential races are managed more effectively with the Electoral College.

We have learned more about voting integrity since the time of Senator Moynihan. It would be even worse than he imagined. There would and could be no recount.

Unlike the the op-ed writer, I am theoretically in favor of one person, one vote and the popular election of the President. However, given the current unequal state by state franchise and voting arrangements, votes are not equal and cannot be made so by the Compact or a simple Constitutional amendment.

As a computer scientist and voting integrity activist I find there are extreme risks in the National Popular Vote Compact’s mismatch with our existing state by state voting system. The Compact would aggravate an already weak electoral accounting system.

There is no official national popular vote number compiled in time, such that it could be used to officially and accurately determine the winner in any close election.

Even if there were such a number, it would aggravate the flaws in the system. The Electoral College limits the risk and the damage to a few swing states in each election. With a national popular vote, errors, voter suppression, and fraud in all states would count against the national totals.

There is no national recount available for close elections, to establish an accurate number. Only in some individual states, if close numbers happened to occur in those states, would there be even a fraction of a national recount.

With the Compact there is every reason to believe that any close election would be decided the Congress or the Supreme Court – the same Court that ruled in Gore v. Bush, that not having a uniform recount law in Florida was grounds to stop the recount to avoid harm to the apparent winner. Citizens and candidates can be expected to bring court challenges of Governors and Secretaries of State for relying on and providing inaccurate results in awarding Electoral College votes.

Reference testimony on the National Popular Vote vs. the Electoral College

Laws interact – be careful what you legislate

Earlier this month we cautioned the legislature about enacting the UMOVE Act without providing election officials an opportunity to check for conflicts with existing laws. We highlight an example of a similar conflict in existing state and local laws that frustrates officials and disenfranchises voters.

Earlier this month we cautioned the legislature on enacting an unspecified “Uniform” Military and Overseas Voting Act (UMOVE Act). The “Uniform” bill requires forty-five days advanced availability of absentee ballots for optionally specified state and local elections, primaries, and referendums. The proposed law had only the following text available for the public hearing:

That the general statutes be amended to adopt the Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act.

In our testimony (page 13), we warned and recommended, among other things:

The uniform law text has options that each state may or may not include primaries, run-offs, and referendums in the “uniform law”. For any of these included, absentee ballots must be available 45 days in advance, just as they are in Federal elections. Currently under Sec. 9-369c of the statutes, absentee ballots must be made available three weeks in advance of a referendum and in some circumstances, less. This may pose even more difficult timing challenges if run-offs are included…

I caution against passing this bill without public hearings, providing for review and comment on the actual text of a proposed bill – especially, giving election officials an opportuntity to point out implementation challenges and conflicts with current statutory deadlines.

Today we highlight an article which brings our point home. It is a story of election officials trying to cope with conflicting state and local laws for election deadlines and absentee ballot deadlines. In the Monroe Patch: Absentee Ballots Won’t be Mailed Out. Who’s at Fault? <read>

Town Clerk’s Office employees will be busy preparing for the April 5 budget referendum, issuing absentee ballots over the counter to residents who will not be able to vote in person and processing mailed in ballots voters obtain online…

On Friday, Town Clerk Marsha Beno said she wants to avoid another State Elections Enforcement complaint…

The statute requires a town clerk to have the exact language on a ballot at least three weeks before absentee ballots are mailed out to voters. Beno said the town could not meet that timeline for the April 5 referendum…
[Democratic Town Committee Chairwoman Patricia] Ulatowski says Town Attorney Jack Fracassini, Beno and Town Council leadership are to blame, because they were informed of the State Election Enforcement Commission’s decision on her complaint agreeing that the town violated General Statute 9-369c during two referendums in 2009, and could have influenced a speeding up of the budget process to meet the three week deadline to mail out absentee ballots.

Democratic Registrar of Voters Sue Koneff looked at the Town Charter and came up with a schedule that could allow the town to meet the three-week deadline and comply with the state statute, according to Ulatowski.

The result is frustrated officials and disenfranchised voters.

A little bit of nonsense in well intended proposed law

“If you cannot fit all the races or candidates on a paper ballot…then use a paper ballot”

The Government Administration and Elections Committee recently passed H.B. 6330, AN ACT CONCERNING TECHNICAL AND MINOR REVISIONS TO ELECTIONS RELATED STATUTES.

Three years in the making, it revises some of the law to take into account that we vote with optical scanners rather than lever machines. Many of the changes substitute text for “he”, change “registrar” to “registrar of voters”, and “machine” to “tabulator” etc. Reading and writing such can be a bit boring, raising the potential for errors. One paragraph on page 27, that we had previously not noticed, caught our attention:

After the changes, in essence it says: “If you cannot fit all the races or candidates on a paper ballot…then use a paper ballot”

Here is the final text that would become law:

(a) Voting tabulators shall be used at each primary, provided, (1) if, because of the number of offices and positions to be voted upon at a primary, there is an insufficient number of vertical columns on any ballot to be used in a municipality, the vote in such municipality at such primary for such offices or positions as the Secretary of the State determines shall be taken by paper ballots, and (2) if, because of the number of candidates for any office or position to be voted upon at a primary, there is an insufficient number of horizontal rows with respect to such office or position on any allot to be used in the municipality, the vote in such municipality at such primary for such office or position shall be taken by paper ballots.

Here is the full text with the old and new language:

(a) Voting [machines] tabulators shall be used at each primary, provided, (1) if, because of the number of offices and positions to be voted upon at a primary, there is an insufficient number of vertical columns on any [machine] ballot to be used in a municipality, the vote in such municipality at such primary for such offices or positions as the Secretary of the State determines shall be taken by paper ballots, and (2) if, because of the number of candidates for any office or position to be voted upon at a primary, there is an insufficient number of horizontal rows with respect to such office or position on any [machine] ballot to be used in the municipality, the vote in such municipality at such primary for such office or position shall be taken by paper ballots.

Hopefully, the final bill be will be corrected before it is enacted. In any case, we can rest assured that we will continue using paper ballots.

Testimony on eight bills, including the National Popular Vote

Today the Government Administration and Election Committee (GAE) held hearings on a variety of election related bills. We testified against seven bills and lukewarmly for one.

Since 2007, I have been the only person to testify against the National Popular Vote (NPV) Compact in Connecticut. Finally, this year I was not alone. But I remain the only Connecticut citizen to testify against the NPV Compact.

I challenge anyone to a responsible public blog debate on any and all of the issues we raised in our testimony on the National Popular Vote Compact.

Note: The General Administration and Elections Committee has taken up several election bills and concepts for this session. We are optimistic that some of the concepts will be developed and passed to provide increased election integrity. Many of the bills taken up, often well intended, have unintended negative consequences. We are highlighting several of them to point out highlighting several of them to point out the good, the bad, and the unbelievable.

Today the Government Administration and Election Committee (GAE) held hearings on a variety of election related bills. We testified against seven bills and lukewarmly for one. We would like to be testifying for bills that would improve election integrity in Connecticut, but when a bill would harm election integrity we testify against it. When a bill would be a help to voters, but has some potentially risky issues, we we will point them out. <our testimony>

Bills included two that would gut the post-election audit, one that would eliminate the secret ballot, one for Internet voting, one to help military voters that was inadequately specified, and one for the National Popular Vote Compact. Since 2007, I have been the only person to testify against the National Popular Vote (NPV) Compact in Connecticut. Finally, this year I was not alone. But I remain the only Connecticut citizen to testify against the NPV Compact. As usual, many of our friends testified for the NPV Compact. Fortunately, we have the facts and logic on our side. It is easy to advocate for something that you understand. I will have more to say on the NPV Compact. Here is the main testimony page. Please also read the additional supporting material in our full testimony it was the first bill on the agenda and is the first few pages of testimony.

I oppose the National Popular Vote Compact. I understand the theoretical advantages of the national popular vote, yet there are extreme risks in its mismatch with our existing state by state voting system.

Three minutes is far too short to change anyone’s opinion. Today, my goal is to open minds to consider a more comprehensive analysis.

What often appears simple is not. The Compact would cobble the national popular vote onto a flawed system designed for the Electoral College, with no means to change that system. It would result in unanticipated, yet predictable consequences that are overlooked and glossed over by advocates for the national popular vote

There is no official national popular vote number compiled in time, such that it could be used to officially and accurately determine the winner in any close election.

Even if there were such a number, it would aggrivate the flaws in the system. The Electoral College limits the risk and the damage to a few swing states in each election. With a national popular vote, errors, voter suppression, and fraud in all states would count against the national totals.

There is no national recount available for close elections, to establish an accurate number. Only in some individual states, if close numbers happened to occur in those states, would there be even a fraction of a national recount.

For Example: The inaccuracies in Bridgeport did not change the winner here in the race for governor and would not have been enough to change the Electoral College. If it was closer we would have had a recanvass and presumably those errors corrected. However, with the Compact the errors would have counted in a national popular vote number reported by the media or any other number calculated nationwide.

With the Compact there is every reason to believe that any close election would be decided by partisian action of the Congress or the Supreme Court – the same Court that ruled in Gore v. Bush, that not having a uniform recount law in Florida was grounds to stop the recount to avoid harm to the apparent winner. Would that same Court rule differently, faced with a close national popular vote and, even less uniformity between states than existed between Florida counties in 2000? Citizens and candidates can be expected to bring court challenges of Governors and Secretaries of State for relying on and providing inaccurate results in awarding Electoral College votes. As in Gore v. Bush, since the founding, close election controversies have all been decided in seemingly partisian decisions by Congress, special commissions, or the Supreme Court.

This is not a partisan issue. It is opposed by promintent members of both major parties. Those who have publicly spoken against the Compact include former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz (D), Connecticut College Political Scientist Dorothy B. James, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), and Minnesota Secretary of State and current President of the National Association of Secretaries of State Mark Ritchie (D).

I urge you to consider the risks and chaos made possible if Connecticut were to endorse the National Popular Vote Compact.

I challenge anyone to a responsible public blog debate on any and all of the issues I raised in testimony on the National Popular Vote. If you think I am wrong in any objection, let us us debate it. Right here on CTVotersCount.org. (If you wish to debate, you must use your own name and satisfy me that you are who you say you are, you must be civil, and must avoid excessive redundancy. I am open to changing my mind on my objections. If they are all refuted, I may have more, but I am open to changing my overall conclusions. Email me which item you wish to debate and I will start a post for that item and the debate will begin.)