CT | CTVotersCount.org

Four pieces of testimony on five bills

Last Friday, provided five pieces of testimony on six bills. As I said in my prepared remarks:

The context for my testimony on four bills is that humans are not good at accessing risks. We can focus excessively on minor, all but non-existent, risks. We often minimize rare catastrophic risks and ignore frequent familiar risks.

We also do a poor job of balancing risks and rewards.

This Friday I will be submitting three pieces of testimony on three more bills. The theme also applies to one of them.

Last Friday, provided four pieces of testimony onfive bills. As I said in my prepared remarks:

The context for my testimony on four bills is that humans are not good at accessing risks. We can focus excessively on minor, all but non-existent, risks. We often minimize rare catastrophic risks and ignore frequent familiar risks.

We also do a poor job of balancing risks and rewards.

(Click on the bill numbers for a link to my testimony, which contains links to each bill’s status page, which links to bill text)

I support S.B.233. It would eliminate a long-standing civil rights violation and unnecessary Election Day Registration work.

It would remove the cross-check requirement that results in massive extra work for officials, delays for voters, and has led to the civil rights violation.

There is no experience of risks from EDR, without cross-checks, in any state.

This Friday I will be submitting three pieces of testimony on three more bills. The theme also applies to one of them.

I oppose S.B.241. This bill is an example of excessive concern for, all but non-existent, risks.

It would require checkers be appointed for all EDR locations and authorize unofficial checkers. Apparently, the proponents are unaware that there are no lists to check in EDR locations.

I oppose S.J.15 and H.B.5278 as written. These bills are examples of ignoring actual risks that occur frequently in Connecticut – proven risks for expanded mail-in voting in Connecticut.

When Connecticut passed the Citizens Election Program, part of the justification was a history of corruption. Similarly avoiding expanded mail-in voting is justified by Connecticut’s ongoing record of campaign and insider voting fraud via absentee.

I do not oppose all early voting. I support in-person early voting. See my testimony for a low-cost early voting method suited to Connecticut.

I caution that contrary to intuition, the best science indicates early voting, in any form, tends to DECREASE turnout.

I support, only if modified. S.B.234.

This Friday I will be submitting three pieces of testimony on three more bills. The theme also applies to one of them.

Lessons we likely will NOT learn from Iowa

There is a lot of lessons that could be learned from Iowa. Yet we may not learn them. On the other hand we may learn other lessons. In no particular order:

Bernie and Pete both won…
Change anything in the rules, and the result is likely to have been different…
People tend to tout their favorite reform as a cure for any crisis….

The bottom line: Be careful what you ask for, the cure may be worse than the disease. Its complicated. Don’t let a crisis go to waste, but avoid knee-jerk solutions.

“‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

There is a lot of lessons that could be learned from Iowa. Yet we may not learn them. On the other hand we may learn other lessons. As Mark Twain said “‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

In no particular order:

Bernie and Pete both won. We go crazy over exactly who won by a few votes or delegates. Sometimes it is critical and important, like in a close election where we need to declare a winner. Not in a single primary where one or a couple delegates are hardly likely to make a difference in the end. Pursue every vote, count everything as accurately as possible. Pursue every irregularity and act on that (unfortunately, that often does not happen.) No matter if Bernie won by 0.2% or Mayor Pete did, they both won. It is amazing the Pete came from nowhere and did so well. It is amazing that Bernie, with obstacle after obstacle placed in his way by the DNC and the media, rose to the top.
Change anything in the rules, and the result is likely to have been different.
Did Bernie win the popular vote? No more than Hillary did in 2016. That will likely outrage my democrat and Bernie friends, yet it is true for several reasons that we do not know. First, this is a town by town delegate contest. That is the rules. The turnout at the caucuses varies from district to district far from the population, and far from November. Those that propose the National Popular Vote claim that would cause more people to vote – more Democrats in blue states, more Republicans in red states, yet also more Democrats in red states, more Republicans in blue states – they are correct. Yet,nobody knows what the results of a true popular vote would have been in either case. Second, more in the case of Hillary or Al Gore, than in Iowa – there is very little scrutiny of the exact vote, no audit across the country. Who cares if Hillary won by 3,000,000 votes in CA or 2,500,000 or 200,000 in CT or 250,000. We do not have an accurate popular vote number for 2016 or 2000 or for any other year for that matter. Change the rules and it would matter.
People tend to tout their favorite reform as a cure for any crisis. This week, one reputedly smart state representative claimed that Iowa was a case for paper ballots. I agree we need paper ballots everywhere, yet Iowa had paper ballots. Even better the caucus votes were held in public so there was no question that the ballots were correct and not compromised in the reported vote count. That same representative votes in the General Assembly all the time without paper ballots. They push a button and it lights up a screen. That is a very transparent, publicly verifiable vote, closer to the Iowa caucus than elections in Connecticut, much safer than any secret voting system. Regularly in Connecticut insiders and political operative steal votes via absentee, almost as regularly that is used as a reason to call for more main-in voting.
Many say Iowa is a reason to get rid of caucuses. I agree.
Many say Iowa is a reason for Ranked Choice Voting. Actually the Iowa system is more like Ranked Choice Voting than winner take all. Like Ranked Choice Voting it takes more math and accuracy to determine the results, it makes close votes more likely, not just in the end, but at every round where a close vote can determine the ultimate result in a caucus or a RCV. RCV can take much longer for results to be determined. Errors in single RCV precincts are much more likely to effect the final result than in the Iowa Caucus.
Elections are complex, people don’t know that. It is hard to account for over 1700 precincts. It is hard to manage dozens or hundreds of people and count their votes correctly in a caucus. Its hard to apply the difficult equations to determine deligates accurately, in the environment of a caucus. It is hard to double check all that. Especially hard since there apparently is no training for caucus leaders, many recruited the day before. Hard to get 1700+ of those counts all correct, add them up and double check them. Hard for a candidate to have individuals in every precinct to collect the data, verify the vote counts, verify the formulas and get all that information to the campaign and then for the campaign to redo and double check that information.
May say Connecticut is better off because we have trained election officials. They are mostly correct. Yet, how do you know there are no errors in the results from Connecticut? How many inaccurate results are reported? In how many cases are results reported with more votes than voters signed in? In how many cases are more voters signed in than ballots counted? I do not know the answers exactly, yet there are many in every November election. Many times they do not matter when contests are decided by many votes. Yet in many cases they do matter. A rare example from 2018 where such a situation was uncovered, investigated and ultimately not remedied.
The Iowa app was a badly botched system implementation, with no real backup. Yet a few years ago Connecticut’s Secretary of the State tried to mandate a system where polling place moderators would put in all our results on election night with smart phones – with greatly tired officials who had worked a 17 hour day, with many times the small number of results posted from each caucus. That system was stopped by an uprising from election officials, who should have been part of designing the system. That took a couple of years for them to be heard by the Secretary’s Office who blamed the officials as being against technology. We now have a pretty good system that uses fresh staff with laptops in town hall to enter data using laptops, not smart phones. Yet that system took a couple of years of Novembers to work out all the bugs to work well enough to be mandated to every town.
Connecticut is fine. Until the next thing happens. Then the Secretary of the State will again say it was outside her responsibility as Chief Election Official, ask for more power and laws to prevent that specific problem. All will be well until the next thing happens…
Having paper ballots and checkin lists means we can resolve most issues, yet it will take time. Maybe weeks. Yet we cannot resolve all problems, missing ballots, voter suppression, screw-ups like the one in Stratford above, illegal absentee ballots etc. We need better plans and processes to resolve those issues, including more re-voting.

The bottom line: Be careful what you ask for, the cure may be worse than the disease. Its complicated. Don’t let a crisis go to waste, but avoid knee-jerk solutions.

“‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

Editorial, Bridgeport Part 2: What could/should we do

Earlier we described the general situation with regard to the recent Bridgeport Primary and some steps in the wrong direction.<read part 1> Today we will discuss some steps that could be taken to prevent these same problems in Bridgeport, Hartford, Stamford, and elsewhere in Connecticut.

Increase Enforcement
Monitor Elections With Independent Monitors
Randomly Audit Absentee Votes, Envelopes, and Applications
Do for Elections What We Have Done for Probate

Increase Enforcement: Over at least the last dozen years all the state watchdog agencies have been under assault by the General Assembly. Faced with an increasing load of complaints the relatively small State Elections Enforcement Agency (SEEC) has been considerably reduced in size. The result has been slower and slower adjudication of cases, while the General Assembly mandated that many cases not dissolved in a year must be dismissed. A start would be aiming to double its size with additional administrative staff, yet mostly more investigators and lawyers. The sooner the better as it takes years for a lawyer there to be fully knowledgeable and productive. We should also outlaw fines levied on officials being paid by their towns. (Maybe its just me, but when there is a blatant violation it makes no sense for the actual perpetrators not to bare the burden) In significant cases we would like to see the violators replaced.

Monitor Elections With Independent Monitors: Last year, Bridgeport had a primary rerun twice because of absentee ballot problems. The second time a monitor said to do it again. That was a local individual who did a good job as far as we know, yet the answer is truly independent monitors, and not just for a couple primaries. Full time expert monitors should be assigned to repeat violators such as Bridgeport – for multiple years – paid to also get registrar certifications, all at the town’s expense.

Randomly Audit Absentee Votes, Envelopes, and Applications: Connecticut has post-election audits of polling place cast votes. We do not audit the centrally counted absentee ballots or the Election Day Registration ballots. We should go way beyond that and randomly select a % of absentee ballot envelopes, checklists, and applications for signature integrity, and voter interviews to determine how pervasive these problems are in every town across the state. Where necessary enforcement actions and expanded audits undertaken based on violations found. Towns with a history of abuse should be subject to increased random selection in subsequent years. This should be a truly Independent Audit perhaps under the auspices of the State Auditors of Public Accounts or the SEEC. The state’s history with the not truly independent post-election audit should be avoided.

Finally, a robust measure of prevention and professionalism that could make a huge difference in Connecticut Elections:

Do for Elections What We Have Done for Probate: Rationalize, Professionalize, Economize.

Editorial, Bridgeport Part 1: What NOT to do

Remember the 1st law of holes: “When you are in a hole, stop digging!”

The election integrity story in Connecticut lately has been the Bridgeport Primary where Marilyn Moore won the primary for mayor in the polling places and Joe Ganim won the absentee votes by enough to win by a comfortable margin of 270 votes, with an absentee margin of 3 to 1. You can read our Recent News links on our home page for more of the details. Bridgeport is known for absentee problems and a high energy absentee operation, mostly by party insiders who in this case support Ganim the incumbent. Yet the extent of this year’s operation seems to be even greater than usual. Neither campaign is looking very professional at this point.

The questions are: 1) To what extent has this operation resulted in lots of illegal absentee ballots? 2) To what extent did illegal activities change the result? 3) Should there be a rerun of the primary? 4) What should/can be done to prevent this from happening again in Bridgeport or anywhere in Connecticut? 5) What should not be done – what would not help?

We will address what not to do today and what we could do, later in part 2.

Here are my short answers to the first three questions, we will address what not to do today and what we could do, later in part 2.

We will likely never know how many absentee ballots were issued illegally, how many votes were not completed by voters, and how many voters were intimidated. It is hard work to investigate each absentee vote and harder to prove if a particular vote was illegal.
We will likely never know. There were illegal activities on both sides, yet clearly more on the Ganim side. Yet, maybe they actually won by legal active absentee promotion.
Courts are very reluctant to call for rerun elections. They are not only costly but bring out a different set of voters, a compressed time for legitimate absentee votes, less time for the election, and a change in voters because other races are not on the ballot. Its a bit easier in municipal races where the actual election day could be conceivably be postponed as well as requiring additional an additional primary. One standard is proving that enough votes were compromised that the result could have changed. Another standard is any skulduggery or errors. Both are too stringent in our opinion, if you agree then it is a judgement call somewhere in the middle. My decision in this case would be for a rerun with strong, independent monitoring. Perhaps a creative solution, considering reality in Bridgeport would be a separate Mayoral ballot in November with Moore and Ganim with equal positions on the ballot. Many courts would disagree. In this case, I suspect many would agree to a rerun.

Two things NOT to do:

Remember the 1st law of holes: “When you are in a hole, stop digging!”

Bad Idea #1: It has been suggested, even by the Secretary of the State, that what we need is more absentee voting, no-excuse absentee voting. That would seem to be almost obviously the wrong thing to do, if you want to reduce absentee abuses. In fact, violating the current law requiring a valid excuse is one of the several frequent abuses in the recent primary. It would be like reducing illegal speeding by doubling the speed limit. There are many states claiming no significant increase in fraud when they went to no-excuse absentee voting. We are skeptical of those claims, yet even if they are true, they are not Connecticut where we have a steady stream of proven absentee fraud – including recent fraud in Bridgeport(last two primaries), Hartford, and Stamford. I have said it before, and I will say it again: We justified the Citizens Election Program because of a history of campaign finance problems, similarly we can and should ustify not expanding absenting voting because of a Connecticut record of ongoing of fraud. For more see or testimony in opposition in 2017:

Bad Idea #2: There was a proposal in the last General Assembly to let voters submit absentee ballot applications online, without signatures S.B. 156. One of the key ways fraudulent absentee ballots are created is by fraudulent applications, where voters attest to their excuse. On of the key ways fraud is discovered and proven is hand-writing analysis of those applications. A huge mistake. For more read my testimony against the bill: Would Remove Valuable Fraud Detection/Prosecution Tool.

Perhaps we will hear several more ideas for digging the hole deeper before this is over.

Op-Ed: Election Security Isn’t That Hard

Op-Ed in Politico by two former secretaries of state, one D and one R: Election Security Isn’t That Hard

First, we need to dispel one misconception. Many people (including many election officials) believe that if a voting system or scanner is never connected to the internet, it will always be safe. Alas, that’s not the case…

What this means is that while we must make our election infrastructure as secure as possible, we need to accept that it is essentially impossible to make those systems completely secure.

Overall, we agree as far as this op-ed goes. Yet, Risk Limiting Tabulation Audits alone are not sufficient. We need additional audits to check the rest of the process, “process audits” e.g. chain-of-custody/ballot security audits, check-in process audits (appropriate voters allowed or excluded from voting?), accuracy of the voter registration database and lists etc. Like many officials the authors focus on cyber attack, yet we must also protect our systems from insider attack. Connecticut has a way to go to meet these standards. We do have voter marked paper ballots and air-gaped systems. Yet we have insufficient protection of those paper ballots and insufficient election audits.

Op-Ed in Politico by two former secretaries of state, one D and one R: Election Security Isn’t That Hard <read>

That’s not to say that it’s easy, particularly given the decentralized nature of our election administration system. Most states administer elections locally and only a few states have uniform equipment in each locality. For many years, election administration has been woefully underfunded, leading to wide variability in capacity and resources. But, as long as the equipment incorporates a voter-marked paper ballot, officials can adjust existing processes to instill confidence in elections, regardless of the equipment in place.

First, we need to dispel one misconception. Many people (including many election officials) believe that if a voting system or scanner is never connected to the internet, it will always be safe. Alas, that’s not the case…

What this means is that while we must make our election infrastructure as secure as possible, we need to accept that it is essentially impossible to make those systems completely secure.

We completely agree. Its important to take strong security measures to protect election systems – voting systems, registration systems – yet that can never be sufficient. We need systems, manual, and computer that are not dependent of electronics. Paper voter lists at every polling place to backup electronic pollbooks and online voter databases. Paper ballots to vote on when the systems fail or the power goes out. Independent audits and recounts of the paper to detect problems and to recover from errors, fraud, and disasters.

The three parts work together. Voter-verifiable paper ballots are required as a check on the computers that tabulate the ballots. The strong chain of custody prevents ballot box stuffing, as well as the theft or alteration of voted ballots. And ballot audits, known as Risk-Limiting Audits (RLAs), make it possible to recover from an attack, or even from malware or unintended mistakes, by randomly selecting ballots and using them to check the accuracy and correctness of the scanner.

It’s not enough to just have paper ballots – it’s also important that they be checked by voters. If a voter makes a mistake while marking her ballot or if a machine that marks a paper ballot for the voter misrecords the voter’s selections, then the voter’s choices will not be correctly counted. This is an important step to raise confidence in the validity of any system. A strong chain of custody also increases confidence.

Overall, we agree as far as this goes. Yet, Risk Limiting Tabulation Audits alone are not sufficient. We need additional audits to check the rest of the process, “process audits” e.g. chain-of-custody/ballot security audits, check-in process audits (appropriate voters allowed or excluded from voting?), accuracy of the voter registration database and lists etc. Like many officials the authors focus on cyber attack, yet we must also protect our systems from insider attack.

Connecticut has a way to go to meet these standards. We do have voter marked paper ballots and air-gaped systems. Yet we have insufficient protection of those paper ballots and insufficient election audits.

West Hartford scam playing out as we predicted

In today’s Courant: Ideanomics hasn’t sent formal ‘Fintech’ plan

When Ideanomics unveiled design plans for a $400 million tech hub at the former UConn campus on July 22, company representatives said they would submit formal plans to the town within the week.

On Thursday, West Hartford town planner Todd Dumais said Ideanomics still has not submitted any plans…

Initially, chairman Bruno Wu said that portions of Fintech Village would be open by September or October 2018.

But now, those initial goals have long passed , and CEO and president Alf Poor said in July that the company foresees a 2020 groundbreaking.

This is all in line with what we have been predicting all along.

In today’s Courant: Ideanomics hasn’t sent formal ‘Fintech’ plan <read>

When Ideanomics unveiled design plans for a $400 million tech hub at the former UConn campus on July 22, company representatives said they would submit formal plans to the town within the week.

On Thursday, West Hartford town planner Todd Dumais said Ideanomics still has not submitted any plans…

Ideanomics, the financial technology company that has promised to bring innovation and hundreds of jobs to town, released renderings of a mixed-use development at the 58-acre former campus at Asylum Avenue and Trout Brook Drive.

The development, so far seen only through animated mock-ups, has been dubbed “Fintech Village.”..

Initially, chairman Bruno Wu said that portions of Fintech Village would be open by September or October 2018.

But now, those initial goals have long passed , and CEO and president Alf Poor said in July that the company foresees a 2020 groundbreaking.

This is all in line with what we have been predicting all along. Initially touted as a future blockchain hub for the world, the buzzwords keep changing while nothing is happening. We predict lots of money will be spent , with no value delivered to West Hartford or the State in return.

Senate Intelligence Committee provides report on Russian Hacking

A highly redacted 67 page report: Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 Election. Volume I Russian Efforts Against Election Infrastructure With Additional Views

The threat is real. Lack of investigation and exaggeration does not help make the case. The science is clear. Senator Wyden is correct. We need voter marked paper ballots, strong security for those ballots, with sufficient audits and recounts.

A highly redacted 67 page report: Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 Election. Volume I Russian Efforts Against Election Infrastructure With Additional Views<read>

Overall I agree with most of the report’s conclusions, yet more so with the minority views of Senator Wyden (page 62). Some of the report’s claims are exaggerated.

Many headlines say that all 50 states were attacked. That is an exaggeration of what the report says. All 50 states may have been pinged or public websites read, yet the report says even that only as speculation. Much of the data in the report does not name states. Actually only Illinois is named.

As I commented on several posts on Facebook: “Several areas where I agree: Paper Ballots need to be protected, effective tabulation audits, and avoid online voting. All of Senator Wyden’s minority report, especially: No real evidence that votes were not changed, Federal standards are in order, we should primarily use voter marked paper ballots and (especially CT) should audit and improve paper Ballot security. Worst of all they all ignore the lack of investigation of the potential NC ePollbook hack.”

Editorial
The threat is real. Lack of investigation and exaggeration does not help make the case. The science is clear. Senator Wyden is correct. We need voter marked paper ballots, strong security for those ballots, with sufficient audits and recounts.

Common Sense: Justified Confidence

“I think the biggest issue facing us is trust in the elections,” said Denise Merrill, Connecticut’s secretary of the state. – As Feds struggle, states create their own anti-election propaganda programs

Trust and confidence are important – Justified trust and justified confidence. – Luther Weeks, Facebook comment

As we have said before Connecticut is above average in election integrity and security for statewide elections, less so for local elections. Above average, is not saying much. Many states, including Connecticut, have a long way to go to achieve justified confidence. PR alone will not protect us from outsiders and insiders. Will not protect us form loss of confidence in democracy.

Note: This is the fourteenth post in an occasional series on Common Sense Election Integrity, summarizing, updating, and expanding on many previous posts covering election integrity, focused on Connecticut.

“I think the biggest issue facing us is trust in the elections,” said Denise Merrill, Connecticut’s secretary of the state. – CNN: As Feds struggle, states create their own anti-election propaganda programs

Trust and confidence are important – Justified trust and justified confidence. – Luther Weeks, Facebook comment

Every time I hear election officials talk about ‘confidence’ I tend to hear what CNN heard, a desire for the public to be assured at all costs that elections can be trusted. Whenever I get the chance, either publicly or one-on-one, I point out to officials that we agree, up to a point; I want the public to have confidence, justified confidence. I always remember the first time my wife and I passed out a flyer about election integrity concerns at a public hearing on our flawed post-election audits. An apparently respected registrar said to us:

You shouldn’t be passing that out, you will scare the public. If there is ever a problem, we will fix it in the backroom, just like we did with the lever machines – Respected Registrar who trains Moderators

One caveat, I don’t know that elections officials always intend to imply that weak, PR type of confidence. Sometimes I may be too sensitive, but no matter the intent, the public often hears what CNN heard.

Case in point, the election complaint settlement in Hartford, covered in yesterday’s Hartford Courant: Hartford Registrar of Voters Penalized:

The registrar, Giselle Feliciano, and Martin Allen Jones, a ballot moderator, violated state statute during the Hartford Democratic Town Committee primary in March 2018, according to a June 19 order from the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

Feliciano and Jones agreed to a civil penalty of $750, which will be reduced to $500 if Feliciano repeats a certification class on absentee voting.The settlement was approved by the city’s corporation counsel, and will be paid by the city, according to city communications director Vas Srivastava.It stems from a complaint filed last year by Anne Goshdigian, a challenge slate candidate in the town committee primary, and Thomas Swarr, whose wife Donna Swarr was running on the same challenge slate…

The pair alleged they were trying to watch election officials count absentee ballots at City Hall about 1:30 p.m. March 6, 2018, when Jones said Goshdigian could not be in the room and all others needed to leave as well, including Jones himself.When Goshdigian and Swarr asked for written proof they had to leave the room Feliciano said Goshdigian could not be within a polling place during voting hours. City Clerk John Bazzano was consulted, and he said the room was not a polling place, according to the complaint.

“Feliciano then ‘changed tact,’ and asserted that it was within her authority to remove anyone disrupting the process,” the complaint said. The registrar called the police and had Goshdigian and Swarr removed.

The situation was partially resolved after Donna Swarr spoke with a state’s attorney, who confirmed to her and Feliciano that members of the public could observe absentee ballot counting.

But Feliciano still did not allow Goshdigian to observe the count, according to the complaint. And when Tom Swarr returned to City Hall that evening to observe the final absentee ballot count, he was again denied access .

Swarr said he’s frustrated that the commission’s decision doesn’t address the second incident.

According to the agreement the commission reached with Feliciano and Jones, it “does not believe that there was any untoward intent insofar as the handling of the absentee ballots themselves.” Feliciano admitted she did not know that the law required her to open the count to all members of the public.

“I don’t know how you could say she didn’t understand what the law was when I came back in the evening and was denied again,” Swarr said. And, the commission said it “does find a troubling lack of contrition and/or remorse in the Respondents’ statements in response to the allegations here. Their failure to acknowledge a material error of law in their answers to this matter weighs in the commission’s decision here…

The registrar’s procedural manual on counting absentee ballots also covers, on its second page, who may observe a count.Of what he saw, Swarr said the absentee ballet counting process seemed perfectly secure. However, the lack of transparency gave a false impression that the system was corrupt, he said.

“It’s silly to exclude people and basically create distrust of the system when letting people observe would add confidence in it,” Swarr said. “The lack of particpation is, to me, the greatest threat to Hartford elections. You should be encouraging people to come in and view and build confidence.

The one good thing is that their was a penalty for this violation, yet everything else should leave us all with less than justified confidence in the system:

Like many complaints, this one took a stretched-thin SEEC months (15) after the election to resolve.
Although there was a penalty it was not paid by the Registrar or Moderator involved, like the legal defense it was paid by the City – what actual penalty is there in that?
The Registrar can save the City almost nothing after tuition and mileage, if she spends a half a day taking an applicable class. Yet the Moderator is not required to be recertified. In the law, the Moderator is just as much, if not more, responsible for following the law here.
Sadly, if the Moderator were re-certified he would not be taught about absentee counting – that is not covered as we recently pointed out to the General Assembly, to no avail, as they cut the moderator certification requirements in half.
And perhaps, worst of all, there was no real remedy to the problem. In one of the most partisan election situations, with insiders in charge of an election won by insiders, there was no transparency, no public verification. A complete lack of credibility and a formula for cheating available for the future: Steal some votes, if someone tries to watch and complains, have your city pay a small fine and WIN!

How Dumb Do They Think We Are?

Or are they dumber than we think?

No matter what you think about early voting, we find one argument by Senator Looney and Senator Flexer in a recent editorial completely irrelevant and misleading.

Or are they dumber than we think?

No matter what you think about early voting, we find one argument by Senator Looney and Senator Flexer in a recent editorial completely irrelevant and misleading: Senate Republicans should have supported early voting <read>

Our Republican colleagues in the Connecticut Senate, as well as Republicans nationally, often cite potential fraud as a reason not to enact early voting. However, the facts around voter fraud are simply not on their side. In 2014,the Washington Post published a comprehensive study that found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014. Even an analysis conducted by the National Republican Lawyers Association —a national organization of Republican lawyers —found only 332 alleged cases of voter fraud nationwide from 1997 through 2011. This is out of hundreds of millions of ballots cast.

What they have said is true, there is little if any votER fraud. Yet that point is irrelevant to the issue.

The problem is that their is plenty of votING fraud especially by Absentee Ballot, and right here in Connecticut. The problem is not the voters it is campaign and official insiders putting their fingers on the scale, RIGHT HERE IN CONNECTICUT, regularly. <e.g. here>

Editorial
We should expect more from the leader of the Senate and the Chair of the elections committee. They should know more, run their editorials past people that know more, and not try and pull the wool over our eyes. We should be able to rely on their words.

An Election Bill Crib-Sheet

This year I submitted testimony on a total of twenty-three bills. Fortunately, many were easy for us to understand and quite redundant. The General Elections and Administration Committee passed a total of one-hundred and eighteen bills. To me, they should have been much more selective in choosing bills to hear and those to pass. Although most of my testimony opposed bills, some of it was followed by the Committee. We are pleased to support seven bills passed by the Committee and oppose eight.

Here is a crib-sheet to help in understanding critical election bills (Those with “*’ are those where we submitted testimony):

H.B.5417 Oppose – Task Force to study blockchain for the registration database. An over-hyped technology in search of an undefined problem.*

H.B.5816 Support – Eliminates the archaic inner absentee ballot envelope.

H.B.5817 Oppose – Will add work to checkers, increase staffing and lines. Unnecessary, and burdensome.*

H.B.5820 Oppose – Task Force to study Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Study too limited, RCV incorrectly defined.*

H.B.6047 Support – Multi-color ballots for multi-district polling places.*

H.B.6063 Oppose – More than one ballot in inner envelope. Dangerous, prevents legally required tracking of absentee ballots an important check on double voting. Instead consider passing H.B.5816.*

H.B.6876 Support – No change for scanning documents by cellphone etc. Current charge is exorbitant.*

H.B.7160 Oppose – One of several poor to harmful Election Day Registration Bills Instead, pass S.B.1049.

H.B.7321 Support – Increases voting security and audits.

H.B.7383 Support – Strengthens Freedom of Information for database data.

S.B.156 Oppose – Absentee ballot requests w/o signature. Signatures have helped catch frequent fraud in Connecticut.*

S.B.265 Oppose – Reducing Moderator Certification. We need more training, not less. Watch the meetings of the Commission on Contested Elections on CT-N for examples of insufficient training.*

S.B.1036 Support – Study regionalization of election administration.

S.B.1046 Oppose – Election Day Registration in polling places. Makes the current civil-rights violation worse without solving problems. Instead, pass S.B.1049.*

S.B.1049 Support – By far the best Election Day Registration bill. Removes arduous cross-check, and eliminates civil-rights violation.*

As we have said before, we aim for a balance between voting integrity, serving voters, and costs, in that priority order.