CT Law | CTVotersCount.org

Little comfort in ‘C’ grade for Connecticut for Integrity

Nor more comfort that the ‘C’ ranks us 3rd in the ‘Class’ of states.

New report from the Center for Public Integrity: How does your state rank for integrity? <read>
With the Connecticut details: Connecticut gets C- grade in 2015 State Integrity Investigation <read>

Let me start by applauding the Center for the report and Connecticut reporter Jennifer Frank for her contributions to the report. I will have some suggestions and criticisms of the report, yet having created a report on 169 Connecticut elections websites I know how challenging it is to set the criteria and perform uniform objective evaluations across several entities with multiple elevators.

Nor more comfort that the ‘C’ ranks us 3rd in the ‘Class’ of states.

It is interesting viewing the details for Connecticut, other states, and also to see the criteria and evaluation methods. My comments:

No state got an A or a B.
I do not feel as comfortable as some might think, living in Connecticut, one of only three states getting a ‘C’.
Especially sad that the state with the first FOI law, once the envy of other states and countries gets an ‘F’ on FOI, worse that poor score ranks us 7th in the Nation !
Electoral Oversight is interesting for its criteria which has only a partial relationship with our work in Election Integrity, which I would include in a comprehensive report on State Integrity.The report section on Election Oversight is focused mainly on if the state has an independent oversight entity and how that agency functions.I appreciate our State Elections Enforcement Commission and the staff there, especially when they stick their necks out in politically challenging situations. Yet, I would quibble with some of the criteria or the exact ratings. As the reports states the SEEC is resource constrained – some investigations are completed quickly others have been on the books for years with no resolution, and possibly no substantial investigation to date. (Complaints and actions short of complete investigation are apparently not open to public access)I note that for Connecticut and at least some other states, all the information was compiled by one person per state, and since it is subjective might be limited by that’s person’s understanding of the items rated and their evaluation of what they were provided.I would rather have a category like Election Integrity and a sub-category such as Evidence Based Elections including criteria such as ‘Voter Verified Paper Records/Ballots’, ‘Post-Election Audits’, ‘Recounts’, ‘Election Records Security’, ‘Public Access to Election Records’, ‘Public Observation of Elections’, and ‘Election Officials Protected from Interference’.

There is one sub-category relevant to Election Integrity included under the generally relevant category of Election Oversight: “In practice, statewide election data are accessible to the public in open data format.” In the case of Connecticut it scores the state at 25% on the category which is poor, yet I would agree, reasonable for what Connecticut provides. You can click categories and they list the criteria, and under the criteria you can click and get exactly what they found for the state. E.g. for election data:

EXPLANATION

Election returns and voter turnout from 2014 are available online on the website of the Secretary of the State’s (SOTS) office. The state does not release election results by precinct, but by municipality, down to each state House district. Results, which are handwritten by the town clerk, head moderator, or other voting official, include information, town by town, on results for any constitutional amendment questions, and the number of absentee ballots issued by the town clerk, the number of absentee ballots received and the number rejected. These results are available for download in pdf format only.

CRITERIA

A 100 score is earned if election returns and turnout are available online and can be easily accessed, downloaded in bulk, and in a machine readable format. The information must be broken down to the precinct level, with files that track the issuance and return of absentee ballots. A 50 score is earned if such information cannot be easily accessed and/or downloaded in bulk, but it can be downloaded in machine-readable format. A 0 score is earned if such information is not available online or it is but it cannot be downloaded.

SOURCE

Website of the Secretary of the State, (accessed June 10, 2015), LINK?a=3172&q=525432 Interview by phone and email exchange, Av Harris, communications director for the Secretary of the State’s Office, April 7, 2015. Email exchange, Tyler Kleykamp, Connecticut Chief Data Officer, Feb. 16, 2015

Common Sense: Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced

There is an analogy with laws, including election laws. Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced. Missing one of the three, all value is lost.

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

In one of his books, Gerry Weinberg pointed out that employee evaluations should be multiplicative not additive, that is, the various dimensions of performance and capabilities should be multiplied rather than added to determine the overall value of an employee. e.g. If my writing and verbal communication are poor, no matter how much technical knowledge I have, what I can contribute is very limited, yet with just average skills in every other area matched with high technical knowledge one can accomplish a lot. Similarly with great interpersonal skills, yet poor technical judgement, I can be less than valuable!

There is an analogy with laws, including election laws. Laws must be Sufficient, Enforceable, and Enforced e.g.

Sufficient – Laws have to be sufficient to prevent that which they are designed to prevent, or to protect what they have been designed to protect. e.g. In Connecticut we have weak ballot security laws: They do not protect all ballots until they are needed for post-election audits; some of the security requirements are ambiguous, open to multiple interpretations; and are based on unwarranted trust in weak seals and entirely lacking in seal protocols.
Enforceable – There has to be a reasonable means of enforcing the law. Once again, we point to ballot security in Connecticut where it is generally believed (ambiguous law) that two individuals from opposing parties must be involved in any access to ballots, yet most ballots are locked in cabinets in rooms with a single lock, with both registrars and often others having access to a key, along with a log of access maintained by an honor system.
Enforced – In reality the must actually be enforced. In recent years we have seen many examples, from banking fraud, leaks of classified information by high-level officials, and campaign finance laws.

We were reminded of this limitations today with an article, one among several recently, on the Federal Elections Commission: More Soft Money Hard Law <read> The FEC is stymied by partisan gridlock.

We all have seen the lack of strong enforcement against the fraudulent activities of big banks, their management, and employees. Or, perhaps less known, existing trade agreements with environmental and labor protections which are ignored, rendering the provisions that sound powerful, generally meaningless.

So, whenever we ask for sufficient election laws, we remind that more is needed. They must also be enforceable and enforced. Missing one of these three components, all value is lost.

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>

WNPR Where We Live: Inside Cyber Security

Yesterday, Where We Live, with John Dankowski, was a discussion of Cyber Security for consumers and business.

At about 17:49 into the show, I called in and reminded John Dankoski of the Secretary of the State’s Symposium on Online voting that he moderated just over three years ago. In response to my comment, Professor Bryan Ford of Yale, gave a very thorough summary of the potential risks of Internet voting.

Yesterday, Where We Live, with John Dankoski, was a discussion of Cyber Security for consumers and business. Listen to the program here <podcast>

At about 17:49 into the show, I called in and reminded John Dankoski of the Secretary of the State’s Symposium on Online Voting that he moderated just over three years ago. The Symposium was intended for legislators. Only three actually attended.

To little avail, the legislature twice passed Internet voting for military and overseas voters – every time a business, government agency, or the Military is hacked it gets less and less believable that Internet voting is safe for democracy, less and less believable that the State or all of our 169 towns can defend Internet voting from attackers.

In response to my comment, Professor Bryan Ford of Yale, gave a very thorough summary of the potential risks of Internet voting.

The whole show is a great summary of the wide range of risks to consumers and the challenges to our infrastructure, specifically utilities.

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.

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”.

Connecticut not alone in election adminstration challenges

Since the election on November 4th we have had all sorts of complaints about Connecticut election administration. Claims that we are the slowest, with the most clueless election officials. And all sorts of cures proposed including more mail-in votes, electronic calculation of results, and reorganization of election administration.

We agree with that their are many problems. We agree with the general outlines of some of the cures. Yet, we caution against knee-jerk reaction, and change without planning and analysis.

We suggest looking at the best practices from other states. Yet, we can also learn from the mistakes and foibles of other states. Often those employing some of those very cures proposed for Connecticut.

We agree with that their are many problems. We agree with the general outlines of some of the cures. Yet, we caution against knee-jerk reaction, and change without planning and analysis.

Lets look at the recent news:

11/17 NJ not so quick in reporting results Using equipment from the same vendor as Connecticut, NJ has problems, delays, and investigations of slow accumulation/reporting of results electronically. Then again, some other states below reported fast, with much less accuracy than Connecticut or New Jersey.

1/25 Mail voting: Not so fast, not so easy, not so simple Take Oregon and their all-mail voting, please. A highly charged ballot question is yet to be decided. In fact they have just counted enough votes to realize they need a recount. Here is the issue, some 13,000 votes were not counted because of possible signature mismatches. So advocates contacted voters after the election to see if they actually voted and requested they come in and sign their ballot or show their signature changed.. We have some of our own issues with all this:

Just how good is their signature matching? Has anyone evaluated their methods. What are the odds they missed more questionable signatures? How many of those 13,000 should not have been questioned?
Does the result depend on which side got more voters to come in and sign (demographics can indicate how a voter might have tended to vote)
And we complain that some results in Connecticut were not available until Nov 5th?
PS: This problem will never happen in Connecticut as we never match signatures. (See no evil…)

11/25 MN lowest turn out since 1986 Many claim, anecdotally and incorrectly, that no-excuse absentee voting is a panacea for increasing turnout. Apparently, anecdotally, it has not helped Minnesota all that much.

11/25 The Maine question: Will 21 mystery ballots change looser into winner? Connecticut has problems with ballot counts not matching check-in list counts, and a greater problem with some officials not checking that those numbers match. At least in Maine there is a recognition that this might be a problem, especially if extra ballots are found after the initial count.

1/26 Electronic result totals not alwasy even close to accurate Here we go again with that electronic tallying of votes. They only missed about one-third of the votes. Fortunately, a news outlet found the error. They say the problem has been fixed, yet sounds more like the error has been corrected in the results of this one election. They are not counting accurately in Kansas any more.

Editorial: Diagnosis before cure. Planning before plunging ahead.

We agree in part with the other critics, that we need radical change in Connecticut election administration. Yet, we need a carefully considered approach and a deliberate implementation of change. Our recommended approach is to do for elections what we have done for probate: Regionalize, Prioritize, and Economize. It won’t be easy, simple, or cheap in the short run, yet simply moving local administration to municipal clerks as many suggest would be a band-aid, with many of the same limitations and risks of the current system.

In the wake of the recent election day problems in Hartford, elsewhere in this election, and in previous elections, we have heard may cries to reform the system. To some extent, to us, they often sound like “Do something! Do anything! Change the system now!” For example <here>, <here>, and <here>. Perhaps Senator Chris Murphy best sums up the frustration and the problems in recent elections:<here>.

The Democrat called it “inexcusable” to have breakdowns, such as polling places in Hartford not opening on time during this month’s election – a mishap that prompted President Barack Obama to call in to WNPR-FM and plead with voters who couldn’t cast ballots to return to the polls later in the day. Murphy also pointed to other instances, such as in 2010 when there weren’t enough ballots in Bridgeport and in 2012 when there weren’t enough workers at the West Hartford polls.,,

A former state senator, Murphy said Connecticut is well past the point of incremental reform and needs comprehensive changes. He said the “balkanized” election system where autonomous local registrars run elections with little state oversight has “resulted in major problem after major problem” and stunted the development of voting technology in the state.

Here is what the public and politicians, in general, do not know:

Running elections anywhere takes special training and expertise, much of which comes from experience working in the polls and managing elections on election days. Experienced gained one day at a time, for the most part, with one to three elections per year.
Outside of experienced officials in leadership positions, such as registrars, deputies, and moderators, nobody understands the complete picture of how the parts fit together, or how it could be modified, without damaging the system. Even many of those officials do not have the prospective of the requirements in different size municipalities across Connecticut. Nor how the alternatives work, or do not work in other states.
Elected officials, except registrars, are naturally barred from election administration activities. Very few have any direct experience and little knowledge of the administration of elections – they do understand how to get elected, the requirements to get on the ballot, and campaign finance rules.
Other states with radically different elections administration organization had problems in this election and other recent elections. Corruption, votes lost, massive absentee voting fraud, unauditable machines, questionable results that cannot be verified, long lines, voters denied access to the polls, and results provided days and weeks later than Connecticut.
Moving the process from elected registrars to municipal clerks is not as simple as it sounds. Registering voters is very similar to what clerks do. Today many do registrations for registrars in small towns. Administering elections is different, planning a one day event, understanding and executing all the special activities before and after election day, recruiting a large one day staff, and then managing that huge event. Of course, clerks can learn and do elections, but many of the training and staffing challenges would remain, many of the constraints and benefits of local administration would remain. It is like saying that if the sewer department is working well, let them take over snow plowing and emergency management because the roads were not cleared well by public works; Or why not hand over managing defense to the Post Office since they wear uniforms and manage to deliver the mail so well.
Adding responsibility to the Secretary of the State will not cure many of the problems. In some cases that would be a good idea, in others not so good. The Secretary should have independent authority to call for “discrepancy recanvasses” in cases like Bridgeport 2010 and Hartford absentee ballots ‘s in 2014. (So should the State Elections Enforcement Commission). But having a strong Secretary of the State is not a cure all. The SOTS and few in the SOTS Office have basic and comprehensive experiences in local elections administration, even while they have a unique prospective not shared by others. (For what can go wrong, consider Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2000 and 2004 or Kansas today. For the limitations of a bi-partisan board of elections, see NY). There are advantages and disadvantages of any system.

Everyone should understand and recognize:

Radical change takes time and care to accomplish successfully and well. Radical change means large risks of failure. Speed without expertise is a formula for failure. Look no farther than the original Obamacare web site for an example. Look at our success instilling democracy in and rebuilding Iraq.
Every system takes time to change. Like rebuilding a railroad while keeping trains running. You may need the old system while the new system is being constructed, comprehensive education and testing is necessary, just like obtaining and testing new railroad cars took several years of planning and testing.
Change costs money, for making the change, and for running the new system. Electronic pollbooks, perhaps $2-3 million dollars, plus connecting every polling place to the Internet (Electronic pollbooks improves quality and efficiency, but do not make checking in any faster nor require fewer lines). Providing the opportunity for “voters to vote at any polling place” is hugely expensive, can delay results, and can take a lot of extra expense to avoid the risks of fraud, error, and protect the secret/anonymous vote.
It is human nature to claim that every wanted change, is a cure for the current problem (see: 9/11 Patriot Act). When we want to increase turnout, every change is touted as a panacea for low turnout (Early voting decreases turnout, but is touted to increase it, as is every other reform. Some reforms do increase turnout). Similarly, every possible reform for Connecticut’s recent troubles will be touted to speed results, shorten lines, and magically prevent all human errors.
As we have stated before, it is also human nature to ignore costs when we want something, yet complain of very small cost when we do not want to do something

Editorial, Diagnosis before cure. Planning before plunging ahead.

Yet Rome was not built in a day or a year or two. Nor was probate reform ( where implementation took from 2009 to 2011). We need a thoughtful approach to reform. We should investigate what works well in other states, and fit the best to Connecticut. We should look at the alternatives and choose wisely, and dare we mention, funding the reforms adequately. Change costs money for the change itself, and for the hoped for better result.

We see three stages 1) Investigating, proposing, estimating costs, and choosing the change (e.g. regional professional election administration) 2) Planning the change. (Exactly how many regions, exactly where they are, planning staffing, conversion tasks, along with the steps and effort involved in the implementing the change), and 3) actually implementing the change.

Regionalizaing elections is more complex than consolidating the probate system. I suspect at least a year, maybe two for the 1st stage, another year for the 2nd stage and two years for the third. How long did it take to plan and build t the new New Haven to, Springfield rail line? Or just purchasing, testing, and deploying new rail cars?

Catching Up – More Post-Election Fallout

Starting with three more articles in the Courant on Thursday: An apology, a column, and an editorial.

Starting with three more articles in the Hartford Courant on Thursday: An apology, a column, and an editorial. <read>

Uraina Petit the Working Families Party provided an apology: Hartford Registrar: ‘I Am So Incredibly Sorry’. You can read the article, our comment online was:

Apology accepted. There is more work to do. There is accountability ahead. Yet, we should all appreciate what it takes to apologize in this situation,and take responsibility for what happened. Sad to see the majority of comments are so vitriolic and completely devoid of understanding.

Next was an opinion piece by Dan Haar, business reporter, delving into election administration Get Rid Of Hartford’s Voter Registrars. Haar has some very good insights on the business beat. We suggest he keep that day job, and observe election administration more closely to provide more appropriate diagnosis and cure.

For the most part this piece gets the problems right. Its also correct that regionailization is key to facilitating many improvements. Beyond that it is a complex system, that needs coordinated improvements that actually end in a result that fixes more deficiencies that the problems and risks it adds. Electronic reporting of results will not fix anything with missing pollbooks. Although electronic pollbooks are a good idea, they do not eliminate paper copes, necessary as backup in case of power outages etc. They do not eliminate updating the voting lists with those that have voted absentee. We have a centralized voter registration system already, it needs improvement in several areas, including not mysteriously throwing voters off the list. Electronic returns can help but they still require care and verification and counting of the votes first. Yesterday, Alaska, in a very close Senate race still had at least 40,000 absentee votes to count (they don’t even know how many they have not counted). The nations largest jurisdiction, LA County, professionally managed, like all of California, still has another 20 days to finish counting absentee ballots which account for about 50% of their votes. Can this state of steady habits wait 24 hours for reasonably accurate results for offices that will be taken in January? The IRS gives us 3.5 months to do our taxes, yet many of us and many businesses can’t get it done in time!

And another large editorial. Electronic Vote Counting Was Coming Anyway, But Registrars Must Go

Once again, we favor regionalization and hope the next attempt at electronic reporting by the Secretary of the State is a winner – providing accurate, timely results, in a way that is workable for officials. We doubt that alone will get results as quickly as the Courant would like, yet provide the accuracy everyone needs, and the detailed statistics activists need to evaluate those results. We are not as enamored as the Courant of election integrity, accuracy, and claims of speed in other states.

More to come over the next few days. There is no need for a rust to judgement. The Legislature starts in January. We will not be able to accomplish much good, and could create havoc in attempting too much in a year, or two, or more.

Let us act deliberatly to actually improve elections

We are amazed by the number of election integrity issues raised by this election and the flurry of suggestions for improvement, led by the Hartford Courant. Yet in all the excitement and rush to judgement and improvement, among the good intentions and good ideas, there is also a misunderstanding of the system, ideas that are not feasible, uninformed, and that would make a worse system.

In fact, its too early to rush to judgement with knee-jerk reactions, without deliberate, complete plans for reform. Yet, we have attempted to counter errors and support good directions in letters to the editor and blog comments. Here we archive some of those articles, editorials, and some of our (edited) comments.

On Sunday the Courant had an article, an investigative report, an opinion piece, and an editorial mostly focused on Hartford’s mess-up, and the allegation that our votes are reported slower than the rest of the nation. The article and the investigative report are a true service, the best of factual journalism. Not so much the editorial and opinion piece<read>

Our response was a letter to the editor of the Courant, addressing the editorial and opinion piece, withing the limits of the 200 words allowed by the Courant, now published online:

Vote Count Accuracy More Important Than Speed

I agree in part with the editorial “Where Were The Results?” [Nov. 9]. Our current system of local registrars is antiquated. We should do for elections what we have done for probate: regionalize, professionalize and economize. Yet, change should not include blind pursuit of speed over accuracy or risk tampering with elections.

Beyond tampering with results, connecting scanners or memory cards to the Internet risks that the scanners can be infected to compromise future elections. Recognized computer scientists and security experts agree. Based on UConn’s recommendations, the external ports on our voting machines are required to be sealed.

Contrary to the opinion piece by Brandon Finnigan, “Learning Who Won Takes Too Long” [Nov. 9, Opinion], some states are more organized and careful than Connecticut in reporting reasonably complete results. Los Angeles County is the nation’s largest election jurisdiction, managed by a professional election administrator, Dean Logan. California has about 50 percent its votes cast by mail. As the Los Angeles County website states, mail ballots received by Election Day and some others are counted over a 28-day period after election night.

Let’s regionalize. Let’s improve the system. And let’s lighten up on getting results, any results, without regard to their accuracy.

Luther Weeks, Glastonbury

The writer is executive director of CTVotersCount.org, an election issues advocacy site.
Copyright © 2014, Hartford Courant

What follows are some of my comments online on those articles and opinions, edited for grammar and completeness.

Two of the articles complained that results were too slow, including an “Expert” from Southern California who wrote the opinion piece. I said:

California counts absentee ballots for up to 28 days after the election. In 2008 Minnesota took at least a couple of months to determine the winner of the Frankin-Coleman race for the Senate. Connecticut would rush to complete our recanvass in eight days…

Connecticut accepts no absentee votes after 8:00pm on election night. In CA, where about half the vote is mail-in they continue counting them for days and weeks after the election. They are not required to be done for 28 days – I know that LA county, the largest jurisdiction in the U.S. goes quite a while. The only thing we count later (if we do) is the provisional ballots.

Connecticut is far from the slowest. Take Alaska’s election counting, please:

Alaska will begin counting more than 53,000 absentee and questioned ballots on Tuesday[Nov 11] in an effort to resolve the state’s unsettled contests for the Senate and for governor. Democratic Sen. Mark Begich trailed Republican challenger Dan Sullivan by about 8,100 votes after Election Night…The race for Alaska governor is actually closer than the Senate contest. Independent candidate Bill Walker, aided when the winner of the Democratic primary bowed out of the race to run as Walker’s lieutenant governor, led incumbent Republican Gov. Sean Parnell by about 3,000 votes.

So, Connecticut is “among the last in the nation to get election results”, yet days, maybe weeks ahead of Alaska, California, and Colorado:

It’s a week after Election Day and they’re still counting votes in Colorado, where some are blaming a new state law that replaced polling booths with mandatory mail-in ballots. Top-ticket races have been decided—Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper was re-elected and Republican Cory Gardner unseated Democratic Sen. Mark Udall—but the vote totals in a dozen state House and Senate races remain unknown

To the suggestion that we should connect our scanners to the Internet because Massachusettts has found no problems, I said:

Massachusetts has never had an election audit until this year. So there is no evidence of the reliability of their processes. In fact, half the states have no audit at all and there is very little to go on to know if there ever was or will be errors or fraud in those states. It could always be that paper ballots and audits actually deter fraud and reduce error. NY did find errors a couple of years ago in their audit, as we have in Connecticut. Respected computer scientists like Professor Shvartsman at Uconn agree there are risks, that is why he advised the state to seal the ports on our scanners. Finally, even though we counted all the ballots in Bridgeport in 2010, the system was never able to recognize the actual results there or to investigate the difference between voters signed in and the number of ballots there.

At CTNewsJunkie: Problems at the Polls Highlight Limitations of Locally Operated Election System <read>.

The main point was that the the new election night reporting system by the Secretary’s office will solve many of the problems – it may solve some, but certainly not all. I commented:

I hope the new reporting system works and is workable. The previous system prototyped twice required too much data entry by each moderator, many after a 17-24 hour day. An improved system will get the data earlier and more accurately, provided time is still taken to double check it in each town before entry and if the system allows the efficient entry of data by refreshed people and their entry is also double checked.

Anyone who pronounces such a system as ready for general use by moderator’s should be required to use it to enter central absentee results after a long long day.

There is much to improve in the whole system especially by regionalization. Yet, there is much that could be done in the name of speed and modernization that could make things worse rather than better.

Human nature being what it is, we tend to believe that any change we are in favor or against will or would have prevented this problem. e.g. see “911 Patriot Act”. Several commenters indicated that if we had kept lever machines or went to touch screens, we would not have all this problems counting absentee votes. I commented:

As an experienced central count absentee moderator I would like to point out a few things:
1) Our absentee procedures are no more complex than other states. Actually simpler than those that require that signatures be matched with those on file.
2) When we had lever machines, and if we changed polling place technology, we would still need paper absentee ballots.
3) The only difference with absentee ballots now is that we have scanners to help count them faster and more accurately. Much more quickly than by hand counting.
4) Absentee ballot counting can start at 10:00am, when 95+% are available. In a well organized operation, all there is to do at 8:00pm is to process a few that came in at the end of the day, print machine tapes, and complete paperwork. That should not take more than a couple of hours.
5) You can pretty well predict the number of absentee ballots based on those that are requested, so you can staff accordingly to get the job done.
Finally, there are good reasons we have voter verified paper ballots in polling places as well as for absentees- they provide a much more secure and auditable vote, over all its a much less costly technology, its less likely to cause long lines (check-in is a separate issue), and paper ballots can be used despite machine and power failures etc.

Ironically, some who complain about the results of the knee-jerk, partially helpful, Help America Vote Act, also propose knee-jerk action this time.

Bottom Line for now:

There were many problems highlighted by this election
There is a lot to fix, things that voters should not put up with
But like some hurricanes, we missed the big one – by Wed we knew who the winners were, a few voters and votes were lost, and the media had a field day complaining about their not getting results fast enough.
Deliberate action based on a bit of experience, facts, and research can lead to positive improvement. Lets do that, not forget the problems and not forget do the work.