Category: CT

UTC Ends Bid To Buy Diebold

Hartford Courant article <read>

In a letter to Diebold released Monday, UTC Chairman George David said UTC was withdrawing its offer of $40 a share, which valued Diebold at about $2.6 billion…

On Sept. 30, Diebold filed a late 2007 annual report with securities regulators. It also filed revised quarterly reports for the second and third quarters of 2007 and the first two quarters of 2008. Securities Exchange Commission and Justice Department investigations of Diebold’s accounting practices remain open.

Earlier coverage of Diebold’s problems<here>

UConn Report Shows Junk Memory Cards Direct From Vendor

Posted on October 11, UConn has a new report dated October 7th of the Pre-Election testing of memory cards for the August 2008 Primary, Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the August 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections <read>

There was a different methodology used to gather cards for this report. Previous reports were of an incomplete selection of memory cards shipped to UConn by registrars — which should have been subject to pre-election testing before selection and shipping to UConn. Those reports demonstrated that many election officials failed to properly follow pre-election testing procedures. In addition there were questions about “junk” data cards that could not be read. This latest report avoids the embarrassing level of failure to follow procedures, while getting closer to the source of the “Junk” memory card problem — cards were shipped to UConn directly from the vendor, LHS:

Larger than acceptable number of cards contained what we describe as “junk” data. By saying that we understand that the card does not contain proper programming, and instead contains what appears to be random noise. When one puts the card containing the “junk” data into the AV-OS terminal it issues a prompt requesting to format the card. Thus such cards are easily detectable and cannot possibly be used in an election. It seems unlikely that these cards were (electromagnetically) damaged in shipping. Consequently, it appears that these cards were either not adequately tested by LHS Associates, or they experienced some kind of hardware/software failure at some point. Among the audited cards 5.4% of the cards contained junk data. This percentage is high and this issue has to be resolved in the future.…

We performed pre-election audit of cards for all districts, and in this sense it is a complete audit. However the cards do not contain the results of pre-election testing done by the districts, and they were not randomly selected by the districts for the purpose of the audit. Instead the cards were provided to us directly by LHS. The results of the audit would be strengthened if it covered also the pre-election testing done by the districts. Our previous memory card audits in fact included this. However, our forthcoming companion report (to be available at http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Reports.html) will document the results of the post-election audit, covering most of the districts, and containing the observations about the card usage in pre-election testing at districts and in the election itself.

This is a useful report as it gets closer to the source of memory card errors and is an example of UConn’s excellent work. We must also recognize that none of the memory card reports accomplished so far have really covered a complete and random selection of memory cards.

Connecticut Accused Of Purging Voters In Violation Of Federal Law

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group has released a report that is getting national attention, Vanishing Voters: Why Registered Voters Fall Off the Rolls. The report accuses 19 states of improperly purging voters from the rolls, in violation of federal law. <read>

Fifteen years after enactment of the NVRA, however, many states continue to appear unaware of the federal rules regarding voter roll purges. A survey of state laws and election officials shows that, on the eve of the 2008 general election, many voters across the country do not appear to enjoy the important voter protection provisions afforded by the NVRA.


Connecticut is among the 19 states accused of violating federal law, to the detriment of democracy.

Citations in the report where Connecticut is listed: Continue reading “Connecticut Accused Of Purging Voters In Violation Of Federal Law”

Constitutional Vote Will Not Be Audited

When Connecticut voters go to the polls in November, they will vote on calling a Constitutional Convention. Large groups are aligned for and against the bill with those in charge of the election opposed. Our personal stand for or against the bill is irrelevant. Integrity and confidence in elections is our concern.

Our points are that like all questions and referendums that vote is exempt from the post-election audit law and that those charged with running elections should not audit themselves. Questions should not be exempt from audit – they are not exempt from error and fraud. We need an independent election audit authority – audit decisions should not be made by the entity being audited.
Continue reading “Constitutional Vote Will Not Be Audited”

Audit No Evil, Recount No Evil, Uncover No Evil

Update: The vote was close and high given that it was a referendum with reduced poll hours. The insiders’ choice won by 52% to 48%. There is no reason to believe the result is incorrect, yet with no audit there will always be a question of credibility in Connecticut referendums.

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Referendum: Front Page Story, Yet Paper Ballots Will Be Ignored

Business As Usual In the Nutmeg State – Another Electronic Vote Without A Post-Election Audit
Continue reading “Audit No Evil, Recount No Evil, Uncover No Evil”

Caught Between The Glitches and The Gotyas

We have been covering a significant report by VotersUnite.org, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections. , the report summarizes the bind Connecticut and other states are in:

Violations of Federal Law Leave States in a Double Bind. The federal government fails to meet its HAVA deadlines for giving guidance to the states on how to comply with HAVA, yet states are held accountable to comply.

News from Florida of our vendor, Diebold Premier continues to reveal the disappointing quality of their products and the Federal testing programs. From the Harold Tribune a short sour story <read>

Two Diebold glitches in one month? That’s no way to rebuild confidence in automated elections.

Sarasota and Hillsborough counties experienced one of the problems Tuesday night. They suffered delays from a software flaw that revealed itself when officials tried to integrate absentee ballot totals into overall election results…

The manufacturer is Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold — a name long connected to doubts about the security of voting.

Earlier this month, Premier accepted blame for the other glitch — a coding error that can sometimes prevent precinct vote totals from electronically transferring to central tabulation systems. The problem could afflict 34 states.

Good news, bad news

The good news about these flaws is that faulty counts can be detected by cross-checks and refuted by a paper trail of ballots. The votes still exist, in other words, though they can be harder to find.

The bad news is that confidence has been shaken, yet again, in automation that is critical to democratic elections. The extra vigilance required to thwart these potential glitches adds to election administrators’ burden and cost.

The fact that the Premier problems occur intermittently, undiscovered during certification or testing procedures, is especially troubling. In Sarasota County, for example, the high-speed scanner/software glitch did not surface in a mock election held last month…

Despite many reforms since the 2000 fiasco, voting systems are nowhere near as credible, secure or user-friendly as they should be.

Here is the good news and bad news for Connecticut:

The good news is that these latest glitches do not apply here because we total results manually from election night paper tapes, rather than accumulating memory cards.

The bad news is we are totally dependent on Premier and their distributor, LHS, for our elections – they are rightfully in the spotlight and being sued for poor quality and generally remain in denial. The lack of security and poor quality of the AccuVote-OS has been proven by independent scientific studies commissioned by CT, CA, and OH.

Moderate good news is that Connecticut has chosen optical scan which is the best system available which meets standards set by the Help America Vote Act.

The bad bad news is that there is no alternative in sight. All the vendors have poor products with no better products or vendors in sight. While some states are improving their laws, procedures, and actions, proposed Federal laws in the Senate would “fix” the Help America Vote Act by making the situation much worse.

The Outsourced State

Last week we covered a significant report by VotersUnite.org, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections. The report describes the multiple ways that states have become dependent on vendors for elections, how Federal laws and actions have placed election officials in an impossible bind, how arrogant vendors take advantage of the situation, that elections are at risk, and democracy in peril. It also highlights some states that are completely dependent on vendors for almost every phase of every election.

Looking at Connecticut, we outsource less than the states that are highlighted in the VotersUnite report. You could conclude that we are much better off, our elections much less at risk. You might be wrong.

The VotersUnite report uses the theme of outsourcing being a tunnel that undermines elections. Here are the major outsourced elements covered by the report. Like most states, Connecticut does not outsource them all (here we cross out those not completely outsourced by Connecticut):

  • Equipment
  • Software
  • Installation
  • Training/Troubleshooting
  • Ballot Programming
  • Pre-Election Testing
  • Maintenance/Repairs
  • Election Day Assistance
  • Results Retrieval
  • Trouble Shooting/Investigation
  • Recount Management

We prefer a different theme: “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link(s)”.

Two of these elements represent a significant risk to Connecticut elections:

  1. Ballot Programming – Before each election memory cards are programmed by a vendor, LHS Associates, in Massachusetts, by people over which we have no supervision.
  2. Maintenance/Repairs – Over this last summer each of our optical scanners was subject to mandatory maintenance planned and performed by LHS Associates.

This summer’s maintenance was to be performed under the observation of election officials but not the public – how hard would it be for a busy, untrained, non-technical election official to look away for a few seconds while a scanner was open, giving the vendor time to replace the permanent program chip in the machine with one with the same external label but with a rogue program inside? What guarantee is there that the original chip had the approved program when the scanners were originally delivered?

“Oh” you say, “this is so far fetched and local officials perform pre-election testing before each election.”

A recent paper by the University of Connecticut clearly demonstrates the ways in which clever coding in the permanent memory of our AccuVote-OS optical scanners can defeat pre-election testing. The report title almost says it all: Tampering with Special Purpose Trusted Computing Devices: A Case Study in Optical Scan E-Voting <read>

Also a memory card test by UConn commissioned by the Secretary of the State surprisingly revealed that less than half of local election officials were able to fully follow pre-election testing procedures.

Reports by UConn and those commissioned by the Secretaries of State of CA and OH also demonstrate the risks of the memory cards and their vulnerability to insiders.

The companies we keep:

Recall that our State’s chief election official incorrectly believes that LHS invented the AccuVote-OS

Secretary Bysiewicz Orders Expanded Post-Election Audit

Update: 8/20
Checking with Dr. Shvartsman about the Secretary’s “98% or 99% probability”, he said:

Indeed, 10% sample from the population of about 800, counting all CT districts, gives about the same statistical result as 33% sample from the population of about 250, counting only the districts involved in the August primary…there is no inference of any kind to be made about adequacy/inadequacy of the 10% sample. The recommendation was based purely on the basis of the population size being reduced from about 800 to about 250.

In general I agree with Dr. Shvartsman. If we were auditing one race over any reasonable number of districts, then what is important is the sample size so 10% x 800 = 80 and 33% x 250 = 83.

For instance, if we want to do a poll of Connecticut and New York voters, if we sample 1000 voters in each state, the resulting confidence is about the same, even though the number of voters in each state is very different.

And given the nature of Connecticut’s audit law and the interaction of the 10% district selection followed by the random selection of races, it is a wholly different calculation.

Further what the Secretary of the State seemed to be claiming had to do with a proof that the machines were working properly, which is a whole different situation – hard to even define given the nature of the audit.

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Original Post:
Secretary more than triples legislature’s 10% audit mandate for primary, 82 districts in 33 towns to be audited.

Along with several advocates, I participated in the post-election audit drawing this morning. Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz indicated they were “advised by Dr. Shvartsman of UConn” with such a small number of districts that this larger sample would provide “98% or 99% probability” that the machines functioned properly. She also reiterated that the November 2007 post-election audits showed that the machines performed “extremely accurately and securely” the only errors were those of voters filling out ballots incorrectly – We dispute that.

In general I am pleased to learn that the Secretary of the State sees that the current audit law is inadequate and that statistics should play a role in determining the level of post-election audits. On the other hand, I would spend additional and existing post-election auditing/recounting resources in ways that would provide higher levels of confidence more efficiently and effectively. These mechanisms as articulated in our petition include:

  • Variable audits by race, based on the number of districts and originally reported margin (i.e. much lower audit levels for races such as the biggest one in this election, the 4th congressional district primary with a margin over 70%)
  • Dropping the exemption of districts with recounted races from the audits
  • Dropping the exemption of centrally counted absentee ballots from the audits
  • Re-instituting hand-counts for close elections – the Secretary supported them for two elections, but now has gone back to machine recounting – one race in this election in New Britain was won by three votes, such races should be recounted by hand (as of this point we have not verified if this election was recounted by hand or was recounted by machine)
  • Dropping the exemption from the audit of counting ballots that were originally counted by hand – we support auditing all ballots – if the November 2007 audits proved anything, they proved election officials do not have confidence in their ability to count ballots by hand accurately without independent verification;
  • And with a chain-of-custody we can trust, registrars can follow, and that is enforceable.

The Secretary also indicated that this audit would prove that the machines were ready for the November election. Once again, CTVotersCount respectfully disagrees: The memory cards are programmed before each election so one post-election audit is limited in its ability to provide insight into the integrity of another election; This may help verify that the machines generally perform well and may not have been compromised by the mandatory vendor (LHS) maintenance performed on the machines this summer; However, as we have said and UConn reports have shown the machines can be programmed to change results based on all sorts of criteria. This makes real the Computer Science reality that any test cannot be conclusive.

Speaking of UConn and the Secretary of the State’s office, we continue to await the promised memory cards test reports from the February Primary and the legally mandated post-election audit reports from that same primary. So far we must go with the Coalition reports for that primary which indicate that due to procedural lapses the value of those audits remain questionable.

We half agree with the Secretary’s statement today:

“Auditing election results isn’t just a good idea, it’s absolutely essential in order to guarantee the integrity of our elections,” said Secretary Bysiewicz. “As Connecticut prepares for perhaps its highest turnout election in a generation, it is important voters have faith that their vote will be recorded accurately and that’s why the independent audits are so vital.”

Yet, we would prefer to have “confidence” rather than “faith” that everyone’s vote will be recorded accurately.

List of towns and districts:
Continue reading “Secretary Bysiewicz Orders Expanded Post-Election Audit”