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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bill Ends Ballot Shortages, Protects Voters

By DENISE MERRILL

The Hartford Courant

May 17, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Denise Merrill is Connecticut’s secretary of the state.

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

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

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

Testimony on eight bills, including the National Popular Vote

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WFSB: What It Takes To Be A Registrar – Politics Play Out In Registrar’s Office

Connecticut is the only state where a registrar from each political party is elected into office. Many registrars told the I-Team while this may seem inefficient, it has worked literally for centuries.

The I-Team provides a bit of an introduction to our unique system of 339 local elected Registrars of Voters along with some interesting tidbits <read>

“The secretary of state’s office sets the rules and sets the regulations, but we have very little power over local decision making,” said Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.Registrars’ offices are in each of the state’s 169 cities and towns.

There are at least two in every office, a Republican and Democrat, who are nominated by their parties and most often run unopposed. Responsibilities include running the polls on Election Day, but also maintaining the voter rolls, and making sure voting machines are available and in working order — to name just a few things.

“We want to assure the voters that their elections are clean,” said Karen Doyle Lyons, Republican registrar in Norwalk.The I-Team’s research showed most registrars are part time and do not receive benefits.

The ones from Burlington earned just $1,900 a year, but registrars are full time in the state’s larger cities.In Bridgeport, the two registrars each earn $65,000.

In Hartford, there are three registrars because of a significant third party, and they each receive $80,000 plus benefits, and they often have full-time support staff…

Connecticut is the only state where a registrar from each political party is elected into office. Many registrars told the I-Team while this may seem inefficient, it has worked literally for centuries.

“If you had one person, you’d be paying them twice as much because you’re splitting up the work,” said Will Brinton, Republican registrar in Bethany.

Readers may recall we suggested a pay cut for the Hartford registrars so that three could do the same job at the same rate as two.

Urania Petit is one of three [Hartford registrars] making $80,000 there and she’s with the Working Families Party.”The law says if I got one vote over a major party, and in this case it was the Republican Party, I become a registrar, but the major party stays,” Petit said.

Petit said she tried to take a pay cut and she was instructed not to.

She told the I-Team she tried to share the load in the office, but the Democratic registrar of voters would not let her.”I receive a memo one time that said if a Democrat came into the office,

I could not serve that Democratic voter, yet still the office is nonpartisan,” she said.

Readers may recall how this non-partisan thing goes, when a slate was ruled intelligible to run, just one year ago: Registrar of Voters suit: Alleged to have fudged petitions for herself and relatives

Last week we testified to the Legislature. Also testifying was Judi Beaudreau, Registrar of Voters in Vernon, for whom we have worked on three election days. Judi and I do not agree on everything, but we certainly agreed when Judi testified for consolidation. We should consider doing for elections what we have done for probate in Connecticut. As Judi suggested to the I-team:

Beaudreau, a registrar with almost 30 years experience, said many of her colleagues are underpaid, overworked and unappreciated, but added that’s not always the case.

“Registrars come into the job they don’t even have computer skills,” Beaudreau said. “A lot of them are in fear they are going to lose their job.

Well, maybe some of them should.”Beaudreau explained in a number of towns, the registrars of voters remains a patronage job.

“What happens now in the system is that the political parties will pick a person to run for the office, and it may be a person who has put stamps on envelopes or labels on envelopes. Nobody else has the guts to say it because it would be political suicide to ’em,” she said.

And Beaudreau said many registrars’ offices have become so poisoned by politics they cannot operate effectively.”Politics has got to stay out of the elections,” Beaudreau said…

Beaudreau believes just one registrar, who is not elected but has some kind of training certification and is chosen by the state, could work in Connecticut’s larger communities, and smaller towns could get by without one at all, instead having a regional approach, much the way probate judges have been reorganized.

“Each of these small little towns would be just another polling place, but there would be one major registrar, and if political parties needed to have representation in the office, have deputies, one from each political party,” Beaudreau said.

Courant: Legislative Agenda for Voting

We agree that the legislature should give attention to election reform, but should consider carefully the reforms they choose. The history of voting is knee-jerk reactions to problems which bring more of the same. We should tread carefully, but consider a comprehensive solution for elections that might well include regionalization, higher training, qualifications, and civil service election management.

Hartford Courant: Agenda: For The Legislature – The state budget isn’t the only thing needing fixing <read>

Among other things it covers elections and voting:

Elections reforms. Let’s not let embarrassing memories of the Bridgeport vote-counting fiasco dim before taking corrective action in a number of election-related areas: campaign financing, voter turnout and election procedures.

The legislature should consider:

•Ending the Citizens’ Election Program’s subsidy of public money to candidates in uncontested races for the legislature and statewide offices. Giving money to candidates with no opponents is a bad use of public funds when the state faces a projected budget deficit of at least $3.5 billion.

•Taking steps to increase voter turnout — pitifully low during the 2010 primaries — by authorizing no-excuse absentee balloting (a form of early voting) and Election Day registration, once a statewide voter registry is complete. Other forms of early voting, such as by mail, should also be considered.

•Vesting the state with more power to run elections. At the very least — in light of Bridgeport’s unthinkable mistake in failing to buy enough ballots for the November election — the secretary of the state should be formally tasked with making certain that municipalities have enough ballots on hand. State law should decree that towns order an ample number — say, enough for 50 to 75 percent of registered voters — with the state paying for them.

•Ensuring that elections are run competently by requiring that local registrars are trained and certified, like town clerks. One nonpartisan certified registrar in each municipality might be the ideal. Certainly there is no need for one registrar per political party.

We agree that the legislature should give attention to election reform, but should consider carefully the reforms they choose. The history of voting is knee-jerk reactions to problems which bring more of the same. For example the well intended Help America Vote Act (HAVA) hastily passed to solve the problems of Florida in 2000, it brought some good reforms where states chose optical scan voting, along with huge costs and risks for those that chose touch screen voting. Some of the problems we are dealing with are because HAVA insufficiently researched and safe voting technology and the methods required to go with it.

Election reform should be based on solid research and experience, rather than myth. We point out that the latest research refutes the Courant’s claim that no-excuse absentee voting increases turn-out, yet in every election we learn of organized absentee vote fraud. <read> We do support election day registration because that same research demonstrates it does increase turn-out and it has not led to fraud.

We agree that the Secretary of the State should have more power to oversee elections and ballots should be ordered. But we would prefer a rigid minimum formula for ballot orders based on past turn-out in similar elections, with local officials required to follow the formula and allowed to increase the order based on local knowledge. Ordering 50% across the board would be woefully inadequate in many towns who regularly win the Democracy Cup for much higher turn-out, even 75% would not be enough in some. But either would be huge overkill in many referendums and primaries, especially in large cities.

The Courant’s idea of centralized ballot ordering would add considerable work to the Secretary of the State’s Office and should be carefully considered, planned and budgeted before it is implemented, perhaps it may even require Constitutional Amendments to accomplish. Currently ballots are ordered by towns that determine and specify the candidates and hold drawings for candidate positions on the ballot. Since ballots often differ district by district in 800 plus districts spread across 169 towns it would be quite a task for the Secretary of the State to create all orders centrally and anticipate local conditions to estimate ballot counts in a primary in Bridgeport or a referendum in New London.

We would also order caution in changing to a single elected registrar in every town. The courant has been in favor of this idea for some time. <read> Connecticut has little experience in electing non-partisan elected officials. One example is the Probate Court which most agree did not work out. The solution there was a combination of regionalization and increasing qualifications. That might work for elections as well. We note that in this same editorial, the Courant would go further for the Probate Court and make it an appointed office.

More probate reform. Connecticut should also move on to Phase 2 of its bold reform of the ancient probate court system by requiring the appointment, rather than election, of judges of probate. They should be chosen on a merit basis.

Appointment, supported by such respected figures as Hartford Judge of Probate Robert Killian, would remove a huge conflict of interest inherent in the election of judges: campaign contributions from attorneys and others with business in the probate court.

The system has been consolidated and modernized. Now it’s time to protect judges from undue influences.

We should tread carefully, but consider a comprehensive solution for elections that might well include regionalization, higher training, higher qualifications, and civil service election management. We note that probate has noting to do with politics so that electing election officials may be, if anything, more risky that electing probate judges.

Bysiewicz: Secretary of the State powerless to enforce election laws, count ballots

We agree with Secretary Bysiewicz that we cannot look to her to deliver on voting integrity. We also cannot rely on each and every one of the 339 elected registrars for voting integrity.

We caution agains patchwork solutions. The problem goes well beyond the number of ballots printed; voting integrity and confidence call for a much broader study and action than proposed by the current Secretary

Hartford Courant op-ed by Susan Bysiewicz, Secretary of the State: Getting Vote Right Takes Time, Money <read>

In Connecticut, our Constitution and subsequent laws dictate that elections are the province of local government. So, the legal responsibility for carrying out elections falls squarely on the shoulders of our 169 municipalities. From large cities to tiny towns, all bear the same legal responsibility to plan for and execute our elections.

The secretary of the state’s office provides legal advice and guidance to cities and towns on how to interpret federal and state election mandates, and how those laws should be implemented. Ultimately, however, it is the democratically-elected, local registrars of voters who are empowered to make decisions about how elections are run. The secretary of the state has no legal authority to compel each town to follow the law, and the power to enforce election laws resides with the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

We agree with Secretary Bysiewicz that we cannot look to her to deliver on voting integrity. Unfortunately what happened in Bridgeport, incidents across Connecticut, and the Coalition Audit Reports demonstrate that we also cannot rely on each and every one of the 339 elected registrars for voting integrity. Our best hope for integrity and confidence is the people and the media utilizing the Freedom Of Information Act, followed by future leadership by the next Secretary of the State and and action by the next Legislature.

We caution against patchwork solutions. The problem goes well beyond the number of ballots printed; voting integrity and confidence call for a much broader study and action than proposed by the current Secretary in this op-ed:

We must make sure that what happened in Bridgeport never happens again. I urge the General Assembly to pass and Governor-elect Malloy to sign a measure ensuring that a sufficient number of ballots are provided for every registered voter in Connecticut.

There are several problems associated with our election system, not the least of which is the city by city, town by town, variations in following unenforceable regulations and procedures promulgated by the Secretary along with unreliable election accounting. Reactive, patchwork thinking, lack of transparency, and resistance to change is what got us here in the first place. As we said in our recent editorial: Understand all the Symptoms, Explore the Options, Then Act

Update: CTPost article presents history of Connecticut law and how we got here and how other states determine the number of ballots to print: Bridgeport voting mess puts focus on local control of elections <read>

Bridgeport Newspaper up too late? Listening to voting vendor, suggests unsafe sophisticated voting system to Connecticut

What happened in D.C. in an Internet voting test was largely a result of very very poor security on the voting system and the D.C. Internet itself. An electronic version of the incompetence exposed in Bridgeport…what makes anyone think they can do better with a system that is scientifically proven risky and requires high technical expertise and flawless oversight just to make it moderately safe, when they cannot even work the current system?

CTPost article posted last night at 11:35 pm: Toward an end to long lines at the polls, miscounts and other election fouls <read>

Update: Stamford Advocate: UConn Professor suggests ATMs would be different but voters still need paper records. Legislator says he fought eliminating lever machines and now favors appointing the Secretary of the State. Election snafus may tarnish Bysiewicz’s stature <read> See after CTPost.

Connecticut Post

Here is their case:

We need a better method of casting our votes. Our system is antiquated. All of these optical scanners, which resemble clunky first-generation fax machines, are only slight improvement over the old lever voting machines. In Connecticut, you can pay your property tax bills on line, purchase beach stickers for your vehicle, and trawl through your kids’ test scores and attendance records at school. You can even pay your federal taxes this way, too. Why can’t you register to vote and cast your ballot online? The time is now for Internet voting. Seventy-seven percent of us have Internet access, and the figure is constantly climbing. Those who don’t have it at home can either access it at work or a library.

Thirty-three states permitted some form of Internet voting this electoral season. The Land of Steady Habits, as we are all aware, is not one of those states.

We point out that NONE of those states as far as we know are doing much other than a pilot for military and overseas voters under an unfortunate provision of an otherwise laudable Military and Overseas Voters Empowerment Act (MOVE) well implemented by Connecticut. As we have characterized this before, Damn the science, Damn the integrity, If it feels good do it.

And where does the paper go for unbiased information?

Degregorio is director of elections for Every Vote Counts, a California-based Internet voting firm. “Internet voting is being used every single day as it has been for the past 10 years, in the private sector,” Degregorio says. “Many boards of directors, unions use it for official purposes to elect their leaders, trustees and pension plan administrators. It’s been this way for the past 10 years,” says Paul for the past Security was on the minds of those overseeing Washington, D.C.’s election as it launched a pilot project to test the integrity of its new voting system for collecting overseas and military absentee ballots. The result? Within hours, computer students at the University of Michigan and their professors hacked into the system. The firm that developed Washington, D.C.’s Internet voting for overseas and military absentee balloting, is an “inexperienced outfit,” Degregorio says, adding that it used a flawed and “sloppy source code.”

As CTVotersCount readers are aware, computer scientists, security experts, and voting integrity advocates have long opposed Internet voting based on the theoretical impossibility of making it safe. As was demonstrated dramatically in the rapid, successful attack on the Washington D.C. test system by professors and students from the University of Michigan, followed by expert testimony regarding the general barriers to developing a successful system: Internet Voting Faces The Music: Hats off to D.C. and Michigan.

And the CTPost’s detailed rebuttal of the testimony in D.C.:

Should the District of Columbia’s experience discourage us from pursuing Internet voting as a replacement for the system we have? Absolutely not.

I have posted a short comment on the article to help edify the Post and the public:

The Help America Vote act was also designed to increase voting integrity. The safest most reliable means under HAVA is paper ballots and optical scanning. But that breaks down with poor chain of custody with a lack of security and not following election procedures.

Electronic voting over the Internet does not have the paper backup. No reputable computer scientist or security expert supports it, nobody has developed a safe system of Internet voting…and scientists have so far proven it would be impossible to do that.

What happened in D.C. in an Internet voting test was largely a result of very very poor security on the voting system and the D.C. Internet itself. An electronic version of the incompetence exposed in Bridgeport…what makes anyone think they can do better with a system that is scientifically proven risky and requires high technical expertise and flawless oversight just to make it moderately save[safe*], when they cannot even work the current system?

Also you have extensively quoted a voting system vendor without balancing information from mainstream experts who oppose Internet voting. Would you go to Blackwater to get advice on choosing between the alternatives of going to war vs. negotiation?

For more on the D.C. test and related testimony by scientists etc. see: https://www.ctvoterscount.org/internet-voting-faces-the-music-hats-off-to-d-c-and-michigan/

Luther Weeks
CTVotersCount.org

PS: I am certainly not defending the current state of voting laws and process in Connecticut.

(*) Maybe I have been up too late the last two days observing recanvasses! As I have said before, I am human, far from perfect, and warn that I have served as an election official.

Stamford Advicate

Professor said ATMs would have eliminated these problems but voters need paper:

If Bysiewicz had purchased ATM-style machines after the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, instead of the scanning technology, the Bridgeport controversy might have been avoided, he said.

“But even those ATM-like machines have problems,” Moscardelli said. “Voters prefer to have some way of verifying the vote on paper.”

Legislator suggests appointing SOTS and that he was against optical scan.

McKinney remembered arguing with Bysiewicz over the HAVA voting systems. During the process of obtaining the equipment, Bysiewicz had to rebid the contract.

“I spent a year or two fighting the optical scanners,” he recalled. “We publicly cautioned her, warning that just because they weren’t manufacturing the old lever voting machines anymore, maybe we could bring some manufacturing back to our state, maybe to Bridgeport. She was more anxious to get the scanners.”

…McKinney said the Election Day debacle in Bridgeport may rekindle the issue of voting technology. He wonders if the secretary of the state, which was established in 1639, is an outdated job.

“The reality is she’s an extraordinarily ambitious politician who used her office as secretary of the state for higher office when she simply should have been doing her job,” McKinney said.

“I think her abject failure to do her job properly leads me to wonder whether or not we should elect the secretary of the state or have it as a position appointed by the governor,” he said. “If it’s appointed, we’re much less likely to have someone there looking for higher office.”

Register Citizen: Denise Merrill favors regionalization of some election functions

getting Connecticut’s towns more up to speed with modern technology will be one of her goals. “I will work very hard to enforce a statewide voter registration Web site … I’m looking at regional solutions (for voter registration),” she said. “We just don’t have the money for every town to do what they do,” she added, referring to the traditional voting process that requires staffing, machines and the costs that go with them.

getting Connecticut’s towns more up to speed with modern technology will be one of her goals. “I will work very hard to enforce a statewide voter registration Web site … I’m looking at regional solutions (for voter registration),” she said.

“We just don’t have the money for every town to do what they do,” she added, referring to the traditional voting process that requires staffing, machines and the costs that go with them. “Voting in person is less common now in some towns, because people don’t live where they work, so they opt for an absentee ballot.”

We note one small, yet perhaps critical error in the article. Jerry Farrell is Commissioner of Consumer Protection, rather than the Office of Public Safety.

Editor’s Note: CTVotersCount attempts to provide fair coverage of the Secretary of the State race. We reference any information that we find that may help citizens determine their vote, particularly with regard to issues associated with voting integrity and voting in general. We certainly do not find every article published and also ignore many which primarily provide redundant information to previous posts with well known candidate positions and information. At times it seems we have several posts in a row focused on one candidate and at other times several focused on another candidate. The posts we cover are selected for informational value and based on when we discover the information. (Also, see our Editor’s Note on the 2010 race for Secretary of the State)

Denise Merrill outlines Secretary of the State campaign

A Tale In Three Ballots

Now that Connecticut voters are used to optical scan ballots, perhaps it is time to revisit ballot design in the “land of steady habits”. Perhaps one of those habits could be continuous improvement! We hear a lot about increasing participation in elections. Creating a better ballot can increase the number of voters willing to vote, and their satisfaction with the process.

Bo Lipari published his testimony on the recent New York Primary <read>

It is all interesting reading. I find two points of particular interest. Bo’s comments on how excessive problems were attributed to the optical scanners and on the limitations of New York’s full face ballot requirement, that is not all that different from Connecticut’s:

media reports too often implied that all problems were machine problems, but in fact while some voting machines certainly did fail to perform as expected, these reports were in the minority. By far the largest number of problem reports were administrative and legislative issue…

Hard to Read Ballots – The single most common complaint was ballots that were difficult to read. Let me be perfectly clear – ballot problem reports are not a machine problem, they are a political problem. New York Election Law requires the full face ballot, a grid layout where all candidates in all races are traditionally presented on a single page. Further, all candidates from the same party must appear in a single row or column. These and other requirements, like the confusing but obligatory party icon displayed in each box (which is all too easy to confuse with the fill-in oval), leave no choice but to use lettering far too small to be legible for far too many voters.

In the past, New York’s Legislature has not been inclined to eliminate the full face ballot despite calls to do so from civic groups. Truth be told, the full face ballot layout reinforces straight party line voting-it’s easy and natural to go straight down or across the party line filling in boxes, and so political parties tend to favor it. The full face ballot is a holdover from the days of lever machines and like those machines, it’s time has passed. New York’s current ballot design is a usability nightmare for voters. The grid layout is unclear and confusing; the small boxes are filled with unnecessary symbols; the typeface is far too small to be readable. Far better ballot designs are not just possible, they are necessary. I call on the Legislature to change New York State Election law and abolish the full face ballot requirement at the start of the new session.

The recent primary clearly demonstrated that New York voters desperately need a new, usable ballot design. Senators, you are the ones with the power, and the responsibility, to accomplish it.

I have been meaning to bring up ballot design for a while. This is a good time with Bo’s excellent introduction to the subject.

Look at a sample Connecticut ballot it is in a grid just like a lever machine, one line per party and boxes for each candidate. To most Connecticut voters this has been the way it has always been – the only way it can be. Most of us are clueless to other designs except for a vague understanding that in Florida in 2000 there was something worse called a “butterfly ballot” and something we nutmeggers understand how to read, not at all, the “punchcard ballot.”

What could possibly be better or worse than our familiar ballot?

Lets start with worse. New York’s ballots are similar to ours, but they require a complete full face ballot, with all the questions, offices, and candidates on one side of one page. In Connecticut we can use multiple sides and multiple pages for complex elections. It gets worse, New York City requires candidate names in four languages and a party symbol in each box, take a look at a sample NY City Ballot courtesy of the NY League Of Women Voters. Part of which is below:

Now lets explore better. Another way of creating a ballot in other states is the so called, not partisan ballot, with each race getting a separate box on the ballot and the candidates listed with their party but without a party line. Voters have to work a bit harder if they want to vote strictly along party lines and hopefully think a bit more about individual candidates and races. Here is an example from Minnesota.

Now that Connecticut voters are used to optical scan ballots, perhaps it is time to revisit ballot design in the “land of steady habits”. Perhaps one of those habits could be continuous improvement! We hear a lot about increasing participation in elections. Creating a better ballot might well increase the number of voters willing to vote, and their satisfaction with the process.

There is more to it than simply changing laws, and moving names and boxes around. The Brennan Center for Justice has a report, Better Ballots, discussing extensive ballot design considerations including usability testing – actually testing to see how well voters understand the ballot! Take a look at page 23 of their report to see a before and after example of a ballot similar to Minnesota’s. <Brennan Center Report>

Inadequate Election Day Registration Pilot Nixed

We are conditionally for Election Day Registration and opposed this inadequate bill. Our opposition was based on authorizing a pilot program with inadequate evaluation provisions, piloting an inadequate, disenfranchising voting method.

CTMirror report: Panel Kills Primary Day voter registration bill <read>

The state legislature’s Appropriations Committee killed a bill Monday that would have allowed residents to register and cast ballots on the same day during the 2011 municipal primaries.

The pilot program, which was rejected 39-11 with bipartisan opposition, also had been opposed by municipal registrars of voters, who saw it as the first step toward general Election Day registration.

“What a nightmare it is for them, logistically, to implement this,” Sen. Daniel Debicella of Shelton, the ranking Republican senator on the Democrat-controlled Appropriations Committee, said.

Primaries are meant to allow political parties to resolve their respective nominations for offices, said Rep. Deborah Heinrich, D-Madison, adding she fears the bill would lead to a mass of last-minute registrations from voters interested only in casting a primary ballot, and not in remaining with their new party. “I don’t see that exactly as the system working,” she said.

Advocates of allowing same-day voter registration argue it is an effective tool to boost voter participation. Nine states currently offer some form of Election Day registration: Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

“They are a rousing success” in those states, said Rep. John Geragosian, D-New Britain, co-chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a supporter of the measure defeated Monday.

We are conditionally for * Election Day Registration and opposed this inadequate bill in our testimony earlier this year. Our opposition was based on authorizing a pilot program with inadequate evaluation provisions, piloting an inadequate, disenfranchising voting method:

I support the good intentions and concepts behind H.B.5321, yet I have serious concerns with the specific approaches in the current bill.

I am generally opposed to the expansion of absentee balloting for any purpose. Absentee ballots have security and integrity risks not associated with regular voting. Election day registration may represent over 10% of the votes in an election. Beyond risks to integrity, in every election absentee voters are disenfranchised without their knowledge in two ways:

First, they may make a simple mistake in following procedures and have their ballot rejected.

Second, voters do not have the opportunity to revote their ballot if by mistake they overvote.

It would serve the voters of Connecticut much better if Election Day Registration (or EDR) were available at each polling place as is the case in five (5) of the six (6) states with EDR as of 2006. Connecticut could follow the examples of Maine, New Hampshire, or Minnesota. We are piloting a less than adequate system, I presume because of concerns with cost and integrity. I recall testimony before the GAE demonstrating the integrity and effectiveness of polling place EDR in Maine.

I would also recommend that any pilot program include a requirement for independent objective analysis with reporting back to the Legislature, rather than relying only on feedback from election officials. When Secretary Bysiewicz chose new election equipment in 2006, she included an independent professional analysis involving citizen evaluation, along with focus groups of citizens and election officials. Without that study we might well have doubled our costs and be voting today on inadequate touch screen voting equipment.

See our full testimony for how this bill could have been improved: <Testimony>

(*) When we say we are “Conditionally Against” a proposition, we mean that nobody has proposed a realistic safe way to accomplish the proposition. We remain open to the possibility that a means may be found that would pass the scrutiny of the majority of computer scientists, security experts, election officials, and voting integrity advocates.

When we say we are “Conditionally For” a proposition, we mean that other states have safe implementations of the proposition or computer scientists, security experts, election officials, and voting integrity advocates have recommendeda safe solution. We caution that a particular implementation or law may not meet a reasonable standard of safety.