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Testimony on two well-intended, yet (hopefully) fatally flawed bills

A week ago Friday, I testified against two well-intended, flawed bills that hopefully will not go forward. One illustrates a terribly written bill that may have some underlying merit, yet leaves the public with no opportunity to understand the merits, the risks, and propose reasonable solutions. The other intended to save work for registrars of voters, would not save much work at the expense of the voters and pollworkers.

My prepared remarks:

Chairs and members of the Committee, my name is Luther Weeks. I am Executive Director of CTVotersCount, a webmaster, and a Certified Moderator.

I have three objections to S.B. 27 as drafted.

First, as written the bill is way too broad, likely unconstitutional, and would shut down the Internet as we know it.

Second, Public access to voter lists is an important check – that only qualified individuals are registered and that people that did not vote, are in fact listed as not voting.

Finally, without knowing what might be proposed in a workable, detailed bill, it is difficult to provide testimony to the Committee that would articulate the benefits of keeping some information off the web vs. the risks to democracy of suppressing that information.

The public should have another opportunity to comment on a more fully formed bill.

I oppose S.B. 601. It is intended to reduce work for officials in counting and accounting for multiple votes for cross-endorsed candidates. However, the bill would do little to reduce work for officials and have unintended, negative consequences, especially for voters.

The first thing to note is that our current optical scanners likely cannot meet the certification requirements of this bill. If the certification requirements are interpreted to de-certify our scanners, then until they are replaced, the only legal method for voting in Connecticut would be paper ballots and hand counting.

In any case, S.B. 601 fails to do what the title implies, “eliminate overvoting for a candidate”. It would require a more error prone process than we have today.

It would result in a less positive voting experience for voters and for poll workers as voters are told they have “done something wrong” and need to vote again.

Time savings, if any, would be minimal and offset by increased time explaining the problem to voters, replacing their ballots and added hand counting of more ballots.

This change will be unnecessary, with electronic election night reporting, all calculations would then be handled automatically, relieving moderators of the allocation task.

Several times in the past I have testified against similar bills, pointing out similar concerns.
I encourage you to drop this bill as your predecessors have so wisely done.

Thank you.

You can see my full testimony at <S.B. 27> and <S.B. 601>. All the testimony at <S.B. 27> <S.B. 601>

For S.B. 27 it is interesting to note than nobody in favor of the bill appeared in person to explain what the bill was intended to prevent. A few days later, we can deduce the motivation from some of the testimony submitted, <here>. Unfortunately, the bill is way overkill for the problem. Perhaps there is a middle ground, yet the public needs access to voter lists including, name, address, age (if not birthdate), party and voting history. Why should such information only be made available electronically to political parties and candidates, while leaving it only on paper in town hall for voters to check that only eligible citizens are registered and that individuals listed as voting actually did so. Perhaps sites could be prohibited from posting the list, while the towns or the state required to publish it – in any case, it should already be a crime to use the list other than its intent. It seems that the Senate sponsor was not interested enough in the bill to come or event write testimony in favor of it, nor was anyone who proposed the bill. Hopefully the bill will not move forward, and perhaps someone will write a more reasonable bill, open to more responsive testimony.

Bills similar to S.B. 601 have been proposed in the past. They actually are designed by the Registrars of Voters Association of Connecticut (ROVAC) to save themselves a small amount of work, imposed by the Legislature. As you can see from my testimony the scheme would save little work, cause voters work, causes voters disenfranchisement, more work for pollworkers, and may even outlaw our current voting machines. In any case there are simpler, better solutions, suggested by me and others who testified. Notice that some registrars testified for the bill, others against, while everyone else, including the municipal clerks association testified against it.

UConn Researchers: Turnout goes down as corruption goes up.

To increase turnout, lets avoid the gimmicks with integrity risks or unproven claims. Lets start with the hard work of rooting out corruption. There is a worse alternative, we could avoid looking. Maybe the public would be more likely to vote if corruption were ignored.

As we have mentioned before, turnout is the “Holy Grail” of elections. Any election reform is touted as a means of increasing turnout. From touch screens to early voting that is one of the justifications, yet in actuality touch screens create annoying lines and early voting actually DECREASES turnout. Here is a post from today, showing 5 Ways To Fix America’s Dismal Turnout Problem: <read> Some of these might help, especially “Get people excited about politics between elections””. Of course, it might depend on what type of excitement:

We also have this recent report from three researchers, two from the University of Connecticut: Bribes and ballots: The impact of corruption on voter turnout in democracies <full report>

Abstract
While officials involved in graft, bribery, extortion, nepotism, or patronage typically like keeping their deeds private, the fact that corruption can have serious effects in democracies is no secret. Numerous scholars have brought to light the impact of corruption on a range of economic and political outcomes. One outcome that has received less attention, however, is voter turnout. Do high levels of corruption push electorates to avoid the polls or to turn out in larger numbers? Though of great consequence to the corruption and voter-turnout literature, few scholars in either area have tackled this question and none has done so in a broad sample of democracies. This article engages in this endeavor through an analysis of the broadest possible sample of democratic states. Through instrumental variable regression we find that as corruption increases the percentage of voters who go to the polls decreases.

Who could have imagined! This might just be an area needing attention in Connecticut. In recent years,

One Governor jailed for taking favors
One Mayor convicted of taking favors, one jailed for taking bribes, and another for sex acts with youth in his office
A State Senator jailed for taking bribes
A road built with missing drain pipes, despite contracted inspections
New Uconn buildings on two campuses with faulty construction
Secretary of the State used state resources to make a mailing list for campaign purposes

In the last year, mostly since the last election,

Three registrars may be removed from office for multiple failures around election day
That same former Governor indicted for campaign fraud violations in a U.S. House Race, along with the candidate and her husband
That same State Senator out of jail, ran again, under investigation for multiple campaign finance violations
Two of three candidates in a three-way Senate primary have not paid their municipal taxes
The current Secretary of the State used a mailing list for a “newsletter” for campaign purposes, and under suspicion of renewing a questionable Notary appointment for political reasons

Most residents could add to the list!

So, to increase turnout, lets avoid the gimmicks with integrity risks or unproven claims. Lets start with the hard work of rooting out corruption.

There is a worse alternative, we could avoid looking. Maybe the public would be more likely to vote if corruption were ignored.

Two days at the Voting and Elections Summit

Three simple ideas standout among the many things I learned and relearned:

When we are concerned about every cost associated with voting, small and large, compare those costs to what we spend “spreading democracy” elsewhere.
Contemplate what people spend in time and expense for the excitement of the Superbowl. Why are we not similarly engaged in Election Day, where the who wins is much more significant to our lives?
Should we be at least as concerned with protecting and auditing paper ballots, as we are with the footballs used in the semi-finals?

I always get rejuvenated with new ideas and camaraderie of a conference. For the last two days I have participated in the Voting and Elections Summit in Washington, D.C.

If you or anyone you know needs help with registering to vote or absentee voting the source of help is the U.S. Vote Foundation or the Overseas Vote Foundation.

Three simple ideas standout among the many things I learned and relearned:

When we are concerned about every cost associated with voting, small and large, compare those costs to what we spend “spreading democracy” elsewhere.
Contemplate what people spend in time and expense for the excitement of the Superbowl. Why are we not similarly engaged in Election Day, where who wins is actually much more significant to our lives?
Should we be at least as concerned with protecting and auditing paper ballots, as we are with the footballs used in the semi-finals?

Monday and Tuesday, I will be back at the Capitol considering what might be possible in the future, while wondering if we are willing to pay for a voting system worthy of the potential value of trustworthy elections, at the NIST Future of Voting Symposium II. Yes, I went to the 1st Symposium and Connecticut benefited.

Digital Democracy Good – for Voting Bad Bad Bad!

Our friends across the pond are thinking of Internet Voting. Tech unsavvy elders apparently want to entice young voters. Hopefully, the young are savvy enough to understand the security risks and are too smart to trust democracy to smart phones.

Editorial in ComputerWorldUK highlighted at TheVotingNews: Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting

Editorial in ComputerWorldUK highlighted at TheVotingNews: Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting <read>

Enabling people to vote online would indeed draw in many young people who otherwise wouldn’t vote, and that’s hugely important. So why am I against the idea? Well, the report quotes a good encapsulation of the key issues here by the Open Rights Group:

Voting is a uniquely difficult question for computer science: the system must verify your eligibility to vote; know whether you have already voted; and allow for audits and recounts. Yet it must always preserve your anonymity and privacy. Currently, there are no practical solutions to this highly complex problem and existing systems are unacceptably flawed.

Another warning [.pdf] comes from a formidable trio of security researchers in their submission to the Digital Democracy Commission:

In our view, the adoption of online voting technology would present extremely grave challenges to the integrity of UK elections, and risk disadvantaging significant sections of the population, which would present a real danger of undermining public confidence in democracy rather than strengthening it as the Commission rightly seeks to do.

Finally, people who oppose the use of new technology for well-established activities are sometimes accused of being Luddites and of letting their ignorance stand in the way of perfectly acceptable change. In the case of e-voting, we believe that the more familiar people are with the technology, the more they understand the very substantial risks that it poses to the democratic process. It is ignorance that leads people to suppose that e-voting is risk-free and desirable; and it is technical experts such as us (and our colleagues whose carefully-argued papers we have cited) who are cautioning against embracing e-voting for the foreseeable future.

Citizen Audit Cites Improvements, Faults Flaws, in Official Election Audits

SOTS Office makes improvements, significant Registrars of Voters flaws continue

Improvements noted by the Citizen Audit include:

Small, yet significant improvements in and corrections to the Official Audit Procedures made by the Secretary of the State’s Office (SOTS Office) at the request of the Citizen Audit.
Increased integrity and credibility of the audit based on a Citizen Audit of the random drawing of districts and races. (As reported separately on 1/21/2015)
- Significantly fewer errors in the random drawing list in November 2014 compared to November 2013.
- Public and transparent drawing of races to be audited after the November election.

The audit observation report concluded that the official audit results do not inspire confidence after eight years and fourteen audits, because of the continued:

Lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
Discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities.
Lack of investigation of such discrepancies, and the lack of standards for triggering such investigations.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.

The audit observations also uncovered tabulator errors and inadequate election procedures which cause some votes for registered write-in candidates to not be counted.

Citizen Audit spokesperson Luther Weeks stated, “We appreciate improvements made by the Secretary of the State’s Office. We remain disappointed after eight years that significant improvements remain to achieve a credible audit, especially by local election officials, in too many municipalities.”

<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release>
Detail data/municipal reports <Nov> <Aug>

SOTS Office makes improvements, significant Registrars of Voters flaws continue

Improvements noted by the Citizen Audit include:

Small, yet significant improvements in and corrections to the Official Audit Procedures made by the Secretary of the State’s Office (SOTS Office) at the request of the Citizen Audit.
Increased integrity and credibility of the audit based on a Citizen Audit of the random drawing of districts and races. (As reported separately on 1/21/2015)
- Significantly fewer errors in the random drawing list in November 2014 compared to November 2013.
- Public and transparent drawing of races to be audited after the November election.

The audit observation report concluded that the official audit results do not inspire confidence after eight years and fourteen audits, because of the continued:

Lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
Discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities.
Lack of investigation of such discrepancies, and the lack of standards for triggering such investigations.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.

The audit observations also uncovered tabulator errors and inadequate election procedures which cause some votes for registered write-in candidates to not be counted.

<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release>
Detail data/municipal reports <Nov> <Aug>

Hartford Election Report: Sad, yet an easy recommended read.

As they and we often say, “Diagnosis before cure”. Lest the cure be ineffective or worse than the disease.

The Hartford Common Council empowered a Committee of Inquiry to gather facts on the widely reported late opening of polls on election day, the long known disfunction in the Registrars Office, and the less reported inaccurate, yet to be corrected reports of election results. We recommend reading the whole report. It is an easy read, yet sad, disappointing, and as some have said outrageous

The Hartford Common Council empowered a Committee of Inquiry to gather facts on the widely reported late opening of polls on election day, the long known disfunction in the Registrars Office, and the less reported inaccurate, yet to be corrected reports of election results. Here is the summary. We recommend reading the whole report. It is an easy read, yet sad, disappointing, and as some have said outrageous. <full report>

The Committee’s investigation confirmed that several Hartford polling places did not allow voting to commence at 6:00 a.m., as required by law. In addition, the investigation revealed additional irregularities. The Head Moderator failed to account for all of the absentee ballots received, failed to correctly tally and report the vote count, and failed to submit a timely Amended Head Moderator’s Return. The Hartford Registrars:

failed to provide the Secretary of the State (“SOTS”) with information about the polling place moderators ;

failed to file the final registry books with the Town Clerk by October 29

failed to timely prepare and deliver the final registry books by 8:00 p.m. on November 3, and thereafter failed to develop or implement a plan for delivering the books to the polling places before the polls opened at 6:00 a.m. on November 4;

failed to adequately prepare and open several polling places;

failed to maintain adequate communications among key election day personnel;

failed to provide the Head Moderator with the proper form to submit his Head Moderator’s Return in advance of the election;

failed to attend a statutorily required meeting to correct errors in the Head Moderator’s Return; and

failed to identify and correct discrepancies in the vote tallies reported by the Head Moderator, with the result that the final vote tally remains unclear, and no Hartford election official can explain what happened to approximately 70 absentee ballots reported as having been received

In short, multiple, serious errors plagued the administration of the 2014 General Election in Hartford. These errors appear to have resulted in the disenfranchisement of Hartford voters and, even several months later, a lack of an accurate vote count.

The Committee has determined that many of the Election Day problems are attributable to errors or omissions by certain Hartford election officials (as described in detail below); a dysfunctional working relationship among all election officials; a lack of leadership and accountability; and the absence of a clear, legally prescribed chain of command.

Once again, I recommend reading the entire report. It really brings home the points made in the summary.

I add some additional thoughts:

Nobody seems interested in actually determining what happened to the “missing” ballots, or determining the actual vote count — a team could easily get all the numbers from the tape and at least determine votes for governor from the machines, which are very very likely to be less than the number of ballots counted by the machines — this report demonstrates, unsurprisingly, that people should not count anything alone, but should work together to verify addition and transcription. Double checking by “two eyes” works.
Some authority could also actually count all the ballots and votes by hand. I will guarantee the number of votes per race will not exceed the number of ballots. (If the count is accurate)
Someone authority could actually count the number of envelopes for ABs. Then count then number of ABs checked-off, then count the number returned on the Clerk’s log…then if there is a discrepancy, match the envelopes to the voter names on both those lists to help uncover the source of any differences.
How many other towns have check-in lists, or ballot counts that are way off from vote counts? Does anybody check…or has this only surfaced because of the visible problems on election day? (We know some towns and moderators check and that others have at least sometimes not)
The official system has yet to a) recognize the actual counts in Bridgeport for Governor in 2010. b) never audited the other towns in 2010 with many copied, hand counted ballots c) Never checked other towns since then that that have had huge numbers of hand counted votes on copied ballots – even those that have chosen deliberately to forgo scanners in some elections. d) Never checked the discrepancies between voters checked-in in Bridgeport vs. ballots in 2010, or checked for such errors anywhere else!!!
And, in Hartford, how about checking the reported counts that weren’t for Governor?

Make no mistake. We applaud the investigation as far as it went. It provides plenty to consider and change.

Yet the Hartford Courant is dissatisfied with the report, apparently believes the investigation was unnecessary. Reflection and deliberation, based on effective gathering of facts, in their opinion, seems a waste of time. The Editorial Board would also apparently place the prime responsibility for choosing actions solely on the Mayor over the entire Council.

Thumbs down on lack of city plan to fix registrar mess-ups

Thumbs still down on Hartford’s handling of the registrar of voters mess. Mayor Pedro Segarra and city council president Shawn Wooden formed a council committee to investigate the registrars’ election day screw-ups. The committee reported Friday what everyone already knew — the registrars bungled things so badly that some polls were unable to open on time. The Friday announcement is full of indignant language — but not a peep about what the mayor plans to do about the situation. “That is being determined,” a spokesperson said. Lame.

As they and we often say, “Diagnosis before cure”. Lest the cure be ineffective or worse than the disease.

Not everything you want, is a solution to every problem

In Wednesday’s print edition of the Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda Toward A More Open Government. There is much to like and agree with in the editorial: Stronger investigative subpoena for state prosecutors; closing the cash spigot for campaign finance; and strengthening the watchdog agencies.

While we are skeptical of the benefits of open primaries, their potential, and ultimately the value of “more moderate nominees”, we are particularly in disagreement with one section, Do-Over for Early Voting.

Its been said that when you only have a hammer, you see that as a cure to every problem.

In Wednesday’s print edition of the Hartford Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda Toward A More Open Government,<read>. There is much to like and agree with in the editorial: Stronger investigative subpoena for state prosecutors; closing the cash spigot for campaign finance; and strengthening the watchdog agencies.

It’s a shame that voters turned down a ballot question that would have removed rigid language in the state constitution that restricts voting to just one day and the voter to one polling place. Lawmakers should put the question on the ballot again.

The measure would have permitted the General Assembly to authorize early voting, no-excuse absentee voting and voting by mail — reforms that make voting more convenient for busy people and increase turnout.

Thirty-four states have early voting, which means the polls are open longer hours or for days before Election Day. Any of these reforms would have been an antidote to the kind of official incompetence that shortened voting hours in Hartford on Nov. 4.

As we have covered in several posts before the election, <here here here here> we have several concerns with no-excuse absentee/mail-in voting. While we support in-person early voting, we doubt that the Connecticut Legislature is ready to pay for the expenses and call for the reorganization necessary to support in-person early voting.

With regards to this specific editorial, we point out that:

We do not get a link between the problems in Hartford in 2014 and an obvious cure in early voting or no-excuse absentee/mail-in voting. One view is that absentee check-off and list printing was too much work to get done in time for election day opening – increasing early voting would only add to that. Another view is that it was some combination of incompetence and arrogance that caused the problems – more early voting would not solve such problems.

Its been said that when you only have a hammer, you see that as a cure to every problem.

In the past it was argued that the problems of Hurricane Sandy would have been solved by early voting – that also is hard to understand unless voters appropriately predict a storm and voted early, while officials were able to expand early voting to cover an unanticipated volume. Or conversely the storm hit during early voting and the post-office managed to still get the votes in, while officials were able to increase capacity on election day to make up for unexpected lower early voting.

Also early voting in none of its forms increases turnout, in actually DECREASES turnout. Once again, we have covered this in several posts over the years <e.g. here>. As we pointed out last time, the Courant does not listen to computer science and security professionals when it comes to connecting our voting machines to the Internet. Here they should be listening to political scientists who show that early voting decreases turnout.

Ambitious agenda should be reasoned and well-planned

In today’s print edition of the Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda 2015: Ambitious Goals For The State, one portion focuses on elections,

We diverge from the Courant in our opinion. We continue to point out that the most comprehensive system of election administration reform would be to regionalize elections, obtaining some of the same benefits obtained by regionalizing probate.

Also, Professionalization does not include ignoring science. There is a reason we do not connect our scanners to the internet to report results.

In today’s print edition of the Hartford Courant, one in a series of editorials setting an agenda for the State, Agenda 2015: Ambitious Goals For The State, one portion focuses on elections:

Elections

Isn’t it time Connecticut’s registrars came into the 21st century? Hartford was so unprepared for Election Day that President Obama had to beg voters who had given up waiting to vote to try again.

State law should be changed to let towns and cities appoint a single trained nonpartisan registrar. The current system under which two registrars (or more) are elected for each town is expensive, wasteful, inefficient. Connecticut needs to professionalize these offices or have municipal clerks take over the job. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy is right to call for reforming the state’s entire election system in 2015.

The state must professionalize voting too. Machines here could transmit results electronically, as in Massachusetts, but they aren’t allowed to. Instead, pages of results are hand-transcribed and faxed to the state the next day. What is this, 1992?

And can the legislature silence those irritating, intrusive political robocalls that invade households at election time? Though most unsolicited pitches are against the law, political robocalls are legal. Some states ban or restrict them. So should Connecticut.

We really have two basic problems with election administration. One predominantly in small towns and another in large towns. In smaller towns there is often a lack of sufficient funds and time for very part time registrars to keep up with the laws, requirements, and technology, and to have staff members to gain such experience to be possible replacements. In large towns there are sufficient funds and staff, yet in some there is a a lack of professional actions – apparently replaced by some incompetence and excuse making. Patronage and selecting candidates by party loyalty often contributes to the problem. Some of these same problems exist in mid-sized towns as well. It would be unfair and highly inaccurate to paint all registrars with this same brush. Most are of individuals of integrity, some in large towns are very competent or employ competent staff, many in small towns expend the efforts necessary despite low pay.

No system is perfect. There are states with effective county administrators, elected or appointed. Yet there are areas with incompetent and obviously unfairly partisan officials appointed, and elected.

Its hard to believe that registrars appointed by the Hartford or Bridgeport Council’s (or any towns) would reduce partisan action/pressure. It might work sometimes, and not work other times. That is no improvement. Registrars make important decisions effecting who is on the ballot, who runs polling places, and when to recanvass a suspicious result. In 2010 the Secretary of the State’s Office reached an agreement with the registrars in Bridgeport to audit every district after the election day debacle – the agreement was nixed by the Mayor and city attorneys. As for saving money, its the council’s that set the salaries for registrars and deputies today.

Moving elections to the clerks would be close to moving deck chairs on the Titanic. It would not solve the time and money problems for small towns. For large towns it would not change the risks of political pressure or in itself save money.

We do need more professionalism in election administration. Less partisan, more professional administration. That requires some form of education and certification, plus a career path so individuals can learn the job and make elections a career. That is why we recommend rationalization with appointed officials.

Also, Professionalization does not include ignoring science. There is a reason we do not connect our scanners to the internet to report results. The Professionals at Uconn agree with other computer scientists and security experts that connecting voting machines to the Internet or phone systems is unsafe. That is why we do not to it. In fact, Connecticut is much earlier than many other states in reporting election results. Where we need professionalism is in taking a bit more time to report more accurate, more complete results.

General Assembly ready to protect everything Internet. Except voting?

Meanwhile Congress, in-spite of gridlock, takes the time to appeal old law calling for Internet voting experiments. Isn’t it time for the General Assembly to follow suit?

Hartford Courant article yesterday: Drones, Privacy: Legislative Issues Reflect Changing Times <read>

The coming legislative session is likely to be dominated by the usual fights over taxes and spending. But lawmakers are also poised to ponder other issues that reflect changes in the social fabric propelled by technology.

From protecting student privacy from firms seeking to access a burgeoning trove of educational data to regulating smartphone – based car services such as Uber to a bold future of drones and driverless cars, the General Assembly could be asked to craft public policy on concepts that scarcely existed a few years ago…

Rep. Vin Candelora, the deputy leader of the House Republican caucus, said that in many ways these are the issues that define our times. “I really think issues are as big as the budget. One is dealing with our fiscal health but these are dealing with the health of our society,” he said.

“The big theme here is data collection. What are people’s rights to privacy? Once information gets out on the Internet, it can never be taken back,”

In 2013 the Legislature unanimously passed Internet voting for the second time. It was vetoed the 1st time for good reason by Governor Malloy, yet signed inexplicably the second time. It would force the Secretary of the State and 169 towns individually to do what the State, the U.S. Government, (including the Military), retailers, and big banks, not to mention Sony have failed to do: Defy science and secure the Internet. <read our past stories on Internet voting here>

Time to ask your legislator “If Internet banking attacks annualy cost banks billions, and Sony cannot protect its email from North Korea, how can you expect our town registrars to protect Internet voting? Who will pay for an election debacle?”

Some related good news:

Congress, in-spite of gridlock, takes the time to appeal 2002 law calling for Internet voting experiments. Isn’t it time for the General Assembly to follow suit?

Last week the National Defense Authorization Act contained a small provision appreciated by voting integrity advocates, repealing a mandate for demonstration project for Internet voting project:

FY 15 NDAA Bill Text (RULES COMMITTEE PRINT 113–58 HOUSE AMENDMENT TO THE TEXT OF S. 1847) (now Act):

“SEC. 593. REPEAL OF ELECTRONIC VOTING DEMONSTRATION PROJECT.

Section 1604 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 (Public Law 107–107; 52 U.S.C. 20301 note) is repealed.”

Joint Explanatory Statement (JOINT EXPLANATORY STATEMENT TO ACCOMPANY THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 (which accompanies the Act):

Repeal of electronic voting demonstration project (sec. 593)

The Senate committee-reported bill contained a provision(sec. 1076) that would repeal section 1604 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 (Public Law 107- 107)that requires the Secretary of Defense to carry out an electronic voting demonstration project. The House bill contained no similar provision. The agreement includes this provision.

Advocates have long worked to have the act repealed and to get the FVAP to reveal results of a study of Internet voting. As we posted last September: What is FVAP hiding? Whom if anyone are they assisting?

Hopefully, it won’t take 12 years for Connecticut to understand the risks of Internet voting and repeal its risky 2013 law.

Election Day Registration: Sadly, we told you so.

But one thing is clear, Election Day Registration (EDR) has failed to meet the expectations of its proponents – unfortunately results were more in line with our predictions.

Like the rest of the U.S., Connecticut had low turn out in the November 2014 mid-terms. Much better than the national average. It is always hard to judge the cause of turnout differences in a single election. But one thing is clear, Election Day Registration (EDR) has failed to meet the expectations of its proponents – unfortunately results were more in line with our predictions.

According to PEW, <read>

Citizens showed up to vote at lower rates than in any federal election since the middle of World War II. Preliminary data indicate that national turnout was below 37 percent. That means nearly 2 in 3 eligible voters, or approximately 144 million American citizens—more than the population of Russia—chose to sit this election out. The nation hasn’t seen turnout this low in any federal general election since 1942. Even in recent midterms, when the turnout was remarkably low, it still exceeded 40 percent, meaning millions more Americans voted in 2006 and 2010 than in 2014.

Examples of the problem can be seen in New Mexico and Nevada, which, despite high-profile statewide races at several levels (governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, etc., as well as a U.S. Senate race in New Mexico), saw their lowest turnouts in a federal election since before 1980. Nevada in particular stands out: Turnout there plummeted to less than 32 percent, a drop of almost 10 percentage points compared with 2010.

According to the Secretary of the State our turnout was dismal, while she was upbeat on the results for EDR: <read>

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill today released the final, comprehensive voter turnout figures from the 2014 general election showing that some 55.57% of registered voters in Connecticut cast ballots on Election Day November 4, 2014…Secretary Merrill is also reporting that some 13,995 new voters in Connecticut were able to cast ballots using Election Day Registration. This number represents 1.3% of the total votes cast in 2014, the first statewide, non-municipal election since Election Day Registration was enacted in Connecticut…

One thing I am very proud of is the large number of new voters – nearly 14,000 – who were able to participate
in democracy due to Election Day Registration! This was a total success and implemented statewide without any serious problems. This speaks volumes about the preparation undertaken by local election officials to accommodate new crowds of voters across the state.

We take little pleasure in pointing out that while we support EDR, we have been pessimistic about the current law and its implementation. First. because the law requires a slow and arduous process that is more time consuming and less convenient that the process provided by states that are touted as models of successful EDR results. Second, because it can disenfranchise some new, inexperienced voters, by not letting them cast their votes into optical scanners, leaving them without the check and second chance when they have overvoted. Finally, we object to the implementation of EDR with procedures that specify that citizens in line at 8:00pm have no right to attempt to register and vote – to us that goes beyond serving the public, to a sad civil rights violation, just waiting to be challenged in court (hopefully before it could put an election result in jeopardy). For our many posts describing the real and potential problems see <here>.

We know that that EDR could do so much more if it was done as those other states do it. We are not cheering so loudly as Secretary Merrill. In fact, EDR fell far short of one of her two contradictory predictions a couple of years ago EDR – Proponents cannot have it both ways <read, view> As we and the Secretary said at the time:

In this interview the Secretary claims early on (8:25 in the video) that states recently implementing EDR have a 10% increase in turnout, but then later finds it hard to accept John [Hartwell]’s example of 10% of voters in Westport using EDR (21:20) as “assuming a very large number”. Contrary to the Secretary’s contention that “it is all done by computer”, registering someone who is registered elsewhere in Connecticut involves calling a registrars office, that office calling a polling place, and then responding back to make sure the voter had not previously voted.

It is correct that testing in a low turnout election (2013) would be a good time to roll out the system. However, that can also generate a false sense of confidence, with a huge turnout and huge EDR turnout in a later more popular election (2014 or 2016).

One last thing we sadly got right was the potential for voters left in the line at 8:00pm in New Haven, 100 Voters Turned Away In EDR Crush<read>

Officials anticipated around 200 people coming to City Hall for Election Day Registration (EDR), based on last year’s turnout. Surprise: More than three times that amount showed up over the course of Election Day, overwhelming staffers and leaving some people waiting up to two hours to cast a ballot.

When the polls closed at 8 p.m., those in line who had completed the registration process were allowed to vote, but under state law moderators had turn the other 100 or so people away without a ballot. Six hundred nineteen people got to register and vote. (The official number was being tallied late Tuesday night.)

We did get one thing wrong, it did not take until a really popular election. As we said earlier, we disagree that “under state law moderators had [to] turn the other 100 or so people away”, it is a procedural limitation, likely unenforceable and, part of the law or not, contestable as a civil rights violation.

Just to be complete, we also would debate the claim that everyone who used EDR was a “new voter”. The figures include those who regularly vote, had not moved, and were mysteriously thrown off the rolls. (Given my experience running EDR in my town, that could represent 5% to 10% of the EDR voters. Not to mention the many new voters who thought they had registered with the online system, only to find at their polling that they had not. Both categories of citizens had to go from their polling places to wait in line at our EDR location. As I mentioned to to Secretary of the State, Peggy Reeves “It is great that EDR is there to make up for such errors, the registration system still needs to be fixed to avoid those problems”.