Other Editorials | CTVotersCount.org

Courant: Keep Primary in Aug. We agree.

We agree with the Courant and add some details to the case against September and June.

Courant Editorial: Leave Connecticut Primary Date Alone – Primary Elections Changing months has its drawbacks <read>

Heat and vacations help make August “a terrible time to have a primary” election, Gov.Dannel P. Malloysaid this week. So he’s going to ask the legislature to change the dates once again — to June for congressional primaries and to September for legislative primaries.

Don’t set those months in concrete just yet, governor. Changing the dates might cause more trouble than it’s worth…

A Courant editorial two years ago quoted a blogger whose research showed that August primaries were historically no worse and often better at attracting voters than September ones. Consider the August 2006 Democratic U.S. Senate primary contest between Ned Lamont andJoseph I. Lieberman. It drew 53 percent of the party’s registered voters…

Give voters a good show, make it easy to get in, and they will come.

The last time the legislature switched primary dates — from September to August — lawmakers on the winning side argued that holding it in September chopped too much time out of the general election campaign. When a June primary was proposed, incumbents complained, understandably, that they wouldn’t have as much time as their challengers to campaign.

We agree with the Courant and add some details to the arguments:

September primaries leave precious little time for determining the winners with potential recanvasses and court challenges. Especially considering Federal requirements to print and distribute absentee ballots to military and overseas voters forty five days before the November election.
Incumbents and unopposed candidates without primary challengers would be advantaged in the September primary with the limited time available for candidates to raise funds and campaign for the November election.
In any case, most campaigning for September primaries would occur in August and include Labor Day weekend.
June would be difficult for all candidates. When would party conventions be held? Late May would be far too late for challengers to create a real campaign. State Legislators and sitting state officials would be running campaigns in the middle of the busiest part of the legislative session.
June would not only interfere with legislative business, it would add to the campaign season. Many of those calling for a June primary would be added to those complaining that campaigns are too long!

Update:

The Courant Editorial seems to imply that Election Day Registration (EDR) applies to primaries:

Connecticut took a step in the right direction this year when the General Assembly passed legislation authorizing Election Day registration — a proven turnout booster. Same-day registration goes into effect in Connecticut next year.

Give voters a good show, make it easy to get in, and they will come.

The bill that passed in Connecticut this year only provides EDR for elections not primaries. We checked with the Secretary of the State’s Office – they concurred with our interpretation. Although we are in favor of EDR, we opposed this year’s bill because it may cause problems without the benefits of EDR successful in other states.

“Chicken Littles” win in Colorado: Ironically, a new official Privileged Class

Those of us in the non-privileged majority will not have access to voted ballots until after elections are certified — too late, citizen activists persuasively argue, for effective public oversight. Many of those activists, it should be noted, have followed election issues closely for years and know a thing or two about them, too.

A new official eyes-only ballot secrecy law just passed and was signed by the Governor of Colorado. Denver Post Editorial <read>

Too bad. Colorado now has an election system with a privileged class of people — not only candidates but also political parties and representatives of issue committees that gave money to ballot measures — who may inspect voted ballots when everyone else, including the media, is excluded.

Those of us in the non-privileged majority will not have access to voted ballots until after elections are certified — too late, citizen activists persuasively argue, for effective public oversight. Many of those activists, it should be noted, have followed election issues closely for years and know a thing or two about them, too.

Ironically, the legislation was supposedly about protecting citizen access to election records, even though the courts had done a pretty good job in that regard during the run-up to the legislative session. It seems clear in retrospect that the bill was designed in part to help clerks keep the pesky public at bay and to insulate current procedures that the clerks themselves admit leave some ballots traceable…

Rather than try to resolve underlying problems that lead to potentially traceable ballots, the new law simply grants clerks broad discretion to hold back problematic ballots from open-records requests.

Too Many Registrars? Or Too Little Thought?

We agree that Connecticut would likely be better off with regional, civil-service, professional election administration. Such a change requires much thought and planning, just like the consolidation of Probate Court. That is not what the Courant is proposing. The Editorial Board also demonstrates a great lack of creativity suggesting that each registrar in Hartford must be paid $80,000 and have a deputy. As we have suggested before, three registrars could each be part time, paid less, and/or do the job with fewer deputies.

The history of voting in the United States is a series of knee-jerk reactions. Punch cards and lever machines to prevent problems with paper ballot skulduggery; Costly, hackable touch screens replacing levers and punched cards after the 2000 debacle in Florida. Once again, the Hartford Courant is ready for immediate knee-jerk action.

Editorial, Three Hartford Registrars Is $200,000 Too Many – Odd law burdens Hartford with unnecessary costs <read>

Wouldn’t you know, Hartford’s three registrars of voters can’t get along and are squabbling among themselves. This is not new, but things have gotten so bad that Mayor Pedro Segarra has offered to serve as a mediator to resolve disagreements.

This problem could be permanently resolved if the legislature would get off its keister. The city shouldn’t have three registrars. It does because of a quirk in state election law.

The law says the candidates for registrar of voters who garner the highest and second-highest number of votes win the posts. But if a major-party candidate — Democrat or Republican — is not among the top two finishers, that candidate must also be named a registrar.

In 2008, Urania Petit petitioned her way onto the Hartford ballot as a registrar candidate for the Working Families Party, and then outpolled the Republican registrar, Salvatore Bramante. The result is that both of them, along with Democrat Olga Iris Vazquez, all became registrars. A registrar in Hartford makes $80,000 per year. Add costs for staff, benefits, computers, etc., and each registrar costs the city about $200,000.

This is too stupid for words. The city is in dire fiscal straits and it has to waste $200,000 on a completely unnecessary job. That spending could go toward parks or public works employees, police officers, reading consultants — or it could be eliminated to lower the budget. If Hartford is going to waste money, why not at least make it fun and drop it in small bills from a plane over the city?

The legislature needs to change the law in its next session. Hartford could do just fine with one professional, nonpartisan registrar. It certainly doesn’t need three

We agree that Connecticut would likely be better off with regional, civil-service, professional election administration. Such a change requires much thought and planning, just like the consolidation of Probate Court. Actually changing election administration would require much more planning since it would involve not just consolidation, but a complete change in the system. Such a change would have to account for many changes in the law, the Connecticut Constitution, new ways of oversight, integrity considerations, and a significant transition plan.

That is not what the Courant is proposing here. They want the Legislature to do something to change Hartford to a single appointed registrar. Who would do the appointing? Who would watch out for the interests of voters along with candidates and parties of opposing interests? Which cities would this apply to? Or would each small town need to somehow appoint a person to a very very part time job? How could qualified candidates be found and vetted? What guarantee would there be of such candidates being available and actually being appointed?

The Editorial Board also demonstrates a great lack of creativity suggesting that each registrar in Hartford must be paid $80,000 and have a deputy. As we have suggested before, three registrars could each be part time, paid less, and/or do the job with fewer deputies.

Reference the recent issue in Hartford and our past editorials. <Hartford Registrars: Fighting Disrupts City Office> <Let us consider doing for Elections what we have done for Probate> <Downsizing Newspaper Recommends Downsizing Registrars>

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.
****************
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.

CT Mirror Op-Ed: Online voting is risky and expensive

Online voting is an appealing option to speed voting for military and overseas voters. Yet it is actually “Democracy Theater”, providing an expensive, risky illusion of supporting our troops. Technologists warn of the unsolved technical challenges, while experience shows that the risks are tangible and pervasive. There are safer, less expensive solutions available.

Our op-ed published at the CTMirror <read>

Online voting is risky and expensive

by Luther Weeks

Luther Weeks is executive director of CTVotersCount.

April 29, 2011

Online voting is an appealing option to speed voting for military and overseas voters. Yet it is actually “Democracy Theater”, providing an expensive, risky illusion of supporting our troops. Technologists warn of the unsolved technical challenges, while experience shows that the risks are tangible and pervasive. There are safer, less expensive solutions available.

This year, the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on a bill for online voting for military voters. Later they approved a “technical bill”, S.B. 939. Tucked at the end was a paragraph requiring that the Secretary of the State “shall, within available appropriations, establish a method to allow for on-line voting by military personnel stationed out of state.”

In 2008, over thirty computer scientists, security experts and technicians signed the “Computer Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting,” listing five unsolved technical challenges and concluding: “[W]e believe it is necessary to warn policymakers and the public that secure internet voting is a very hard technical problem, and that we should proceed with internet voting schemes only after thorough consideration of the technical and non-technical issues in doing so.”

The prevailing attitude seems to be, if voters and election officials like it and see no obvious problems then it must be safe.

In September 2010, Washington D.C. opened their proposed internet voting system to public testing. The system was quickly compromised, changing all past and future votes. Separately, the municipal network was entered, passwords to municipal systems obtained, and the list of codes for Internet voting in the November election were obtained.

This should not be surprising. Almost weekly we learn of one system or another that is penetrated by outsiders, including teens and overseas criminals. Organizations that have been unable to protect networks and applications include banks, government agencies, the Department of Defense, Google, and ironically, Internet security firms.

Several states have implemented various forms of Internet voting. None has subjected their systems to evaluation and testing for the difficult challenges identified by the experts. One of the “success stories” without any proof for precluding vulnerabilities is West Virginia. That state spent about $75,000 for 54 electronic votes. Over $1,300 per voter!

To the public, like some legislators, it seems intuitive to accept that “We use ATMs and bank online with no problems, why not vote that way?” This argument fails theoretically and practically. The anonymous ballot does not provide the verification and proof of banking receipts or double entry bookkeeping which help detect fraud. ATMs are bank-owned computers with special network security, much safer than general purpose computers. Even so, banks lose billions each year to fraud with ATMs and online banking. They have warned their business customers to avoid online banking.

There are better, safer, economical alternatives available. The Federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE), passed in 2009, provides for electronic distribution of ballots and absentee ballots that can be returned together in one envelope. In conjunction with the Overseas Voter Foundation, express return of ballots was available from 94 countries for $25 or less. Even regular express rates from almost anywhere are available for less than one-tenth the cost of the unproven West Virginia system. If a military and overseas voter can get to a computer network then they should be able to express their paper ballot and absentee application, at our expense, providing a safe, anonymous, and auditable vote.

To ask Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, to accomplish what experts have not is a tall order. Especially with no budget! As Merrill testified earlier this year, “In the future, it is conceivable that we could move in the direction of online voting. But the problem is, the technology to make sure no one can hack into an online voting system and distort the vote totals has not yet been developed. We want to make voting more convenient, but not at the expense of the security or integrity of our elections…there is no on-line voting system secure enough to protect the integrity of the vote.”

Update: Said a different way. CBC interview with Professor Andrew Appel. He emphasizes that online voting is “dangerous to democracy” on both the client and server ends. (Interview starts about 1/3 into the podcast <listen>

Courant Op-Ed: Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned of national popular vote risks

We have learned more about voting integrity since the time of Senator Moynihan. It would be even worse than he imagined.

Courant Op-Ed by Chris DeSanctis: NO: Electoral College Votes Should Represent State Voters’ Choice <read>

The op-ed quotes the late New York Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

With a national vote differential of only 500,000 (less than a 0.5 percent) between the two candidates, a national popular vote Electoral College compact would have caused Florida’s problems to appear minor in comparison. Both campaigns would have contested votes state by state, precinct by precinct, looking for a few thousand here and a few thousand there. That struggle would have taken place across America, rather than just in Florida.

The late Democratic senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once remarked about such a circumstance under a national popular vote agreement: “There would be genuine pressures to fraud and abuse. It would be an election no one understood until the next day or the day after, with recounts that go on forever, and in any event, with no conclusion, and a runoff to come. The drama, the dignity, the decisiveness and finality of the American political system are drained away in an endless sequence of contests, disputed outcomes and more contests to resolve outcomes already disputed. That is how legitimacy is lost.” Close presidential races are managed more effectively with the Electoral College.

We have learned more about voting integrity since the time of Senator Moynihan. It would be even worse than he imagined. There would and could be no recount.

Unlike the the op-ed writer, I am theoretically in favor of one person, one vote and the popular election of the President. However, given the current unequal state by state franchise and voting arrangements, votes are not equal and cannot be made so by the Compact or a simple Constitutional amendment.

As a computer scientist and voting integrity activist I find there are extreme risks in the National Popular Vote Compact’s mismatch with our existing state by state voting system. The Compact would aggravate an already weak electoral accounting system.

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 aggravate 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.

With the Compact there is every reason to believe that any close election would be decided 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. 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.

Reference testimony on the National Popular Vote vs. the Electoral College

Losing democracy in cyberspace

Voting computers, like heads of state, must be held accountable to the people they serve.

As we have said, many times, with regard our audits in Connecticut: “If we dismiss all differences as human counting errors, if there ever was error or fraud it would not be recognized.”

Editorial by voting integrity advocated Penny Venetis in NorthJersey.com: Losing democracy in cyberspace – Voting computers, like heads of state, must be held accountable to the people they serve. <read>

What nobody is talking about is how votes will be cast in emerging democracies. For elections to be legitimate in such countries, it is critical to use voting technology that counts votes accurately. In the 21st century, chances are high that computers will be used in some form in the coming elections in Egypt and Tunisia. But voting computers, like heads of state, must be held accountable to the people they serve.

It is a tenet of computer science that computers can be programmed to do anything, including play “Jeopardy!” and steal votes…

The Princeton hacks are not unique. Studies commissioned by the secretaries of state of California, Ohio, Maryland and Connecticut outline in great detail the many vulnerabilities of various computerized voting systems.

The University of Connecticut and Professor Appel in New Jersey have produced several excellent reports on the vulnerabilities of voting machines and the lack of physical security provided by “tamper evident” seals in common use. Yet, as Professor Venetis points out, having paper ballots and knowing the risks is not enough:

But voter verified paper ballots, in and of themselves, cannot detect fraud. To fully ensure that the voting computers are not cheating, it is necessary to audit a certain percentage of voting machines in each election precinct by manually counting the paper ballots and comparing the hand-counted results with the computer-generated results. This system worked marvelously in Minnesota, when millions of voter verified paper ballots had to be hand-counted to determine the winner of the 2008 Senate race. Studies showed that the tally was 99.99 percent accurate.

Finally, to ensure that votes are counted accurately, it is imperative that totals be counted and announced at the precinct level. This protects against tampering with voting machines and paper ballots while they are being transported to centralized tabulation locations.

New Jersey falls short because they do not have paper ballots or paper records. Connecticut has paper ballot and audits, yet our audits fall far short. Our law has several glaring exemptions and flaws, including: Only polling place optical scanned ballots are audited – omitting most absentee ballots and hand counted ballots, like those copied ballots in Bridgeport; exemptions for districts that have recanvasses or contested elections; results audited against are not published; there is no deadline for publishing results of the audits which are not binding on the election; random drawings have not met the requirements of the law; audits showing differences that have been investigated behind closed doors; and the audit reports have dismissed all differences as human counting errors. <See: Inadequate Counting, Reporting, and Reporting Continue>

As we have said, many times, with regard our audits in Connecticut: “If we dismiss all differences as human counting errors, if there ever was error or fraud it would not be recognized.”

Op-Ed: Photo ID’s downsides for voting

Photo ID may be a well-intentioned idea, but it is expensive “security theater” that will disenfranchise far more voters than any fraud it will prevent.

Joyce McCloy of the NC. Coalition for Verified Voting outlines the case against current proposals for Photo ID’s <read>

Requiring voters to present a photo ID at the polls sounds like a good idea – but it is everything we hate about government: a complex and expensive nonsolution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

To implement such a law would cost millions each year, would likely disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters – especially women, the elderly and minorities – and would not prevent fraud that it is designed to stop. Now the issue is coming to a head in North Carolina: The House Elections Committee is scheduled to take public comments on photo ID at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Room 643 of the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh.

At issue is not “voter ID” but rather the matter of imposing photo ID restrictions at the polling place. There’s no problem, in general, with “voter ID,” providing that there are many options for establishing identity, as there are in Alabama and Missouri, where many types of documents suffice.

Currently 18 states require “voter ID,” and eight states require “photo ID.” These eight states, however, do not have a way to verify the ID. Someone determined to commit voter impersonation could simply use a fake ID. Obtaining fake ID cards is easy enough – kits can be bought cheaply. In reality, the most common and difficult to detect voter fraud happens in absentee balloting. Requiring picture IDs on Election Day does nothing to prevent that…

The Brennan Center for Justice cites three basic principles that must be satisfied to avoid a constitutional challenge of any photo ID law:

First, photo IDs sufficient for voting must be available free for all those who do not have them. States cannot limit free IDs to those who swear they are indigent. North Carolina would need to pay the costs of obtaining the supporting documents necessary to obtain photo IDs.

Second, photo IDs must be readily accessible to all voters, without undue burden. To make ID easily accessible, our state might have to expand the number of ID-issuing offices and extend their operating hours.

Third, states must undertake substantial voter outreach and public education efforts to ensure that voters are apprised of the law’s requirements and the procedures for obtaining the IDs they will need to vote…

Photo ID may be a well-intentioned idea, but it is expensive “security theater” that will disenfranchise far more voters than any fraud it will prevent.

Clerks: No-Excuse Absentee Voting Creates Problems

The opinion piece hits all of the bases, articulating the costs, the increased opportunity for fraud, increased disenfranchisement, and that it will not increase turnout.

Courant article by Joseph V. Camposeo, town clerk of Manchester and president of the Connecticut Town Clerks Association. <read>

The opinion piece hits all of the bases, articulating the costs, the increased opportunity for fraud, increased disenfranchisement, and that it will not increase turnout:

Research from other states has shown that when offered no-excuse absentee ballot voting, the volume of people using this method has doubled or tripled. But it is important to note that in these states overall voter turnout has not increased.

Further, our current system for processing absentee ballots could not handle the increase in volume under a no-excuse system. The no-excuse option would quickly strain an outdated, inefficient and manual process for mailing, accounting for and counting of absentee ballots. A no-excuse option for voting will have a significant effect on our municipal budgets as an unfunded mandate.

A significant concern among town clerks and the state Elections Enforcement Commission is the potential for voter fraud in this highly manual process. The current system does not provide for the security and storage of a large number of ballots within the town clerks’ vaults. Also, with higher volumes, there is greater opportunity for counting errors.

Under a no-excuse system there is no way to guarantee the applicant is voting the ballot. The absentee voting system already has been the focus of forgery, coercion, bribery and multiple-voting complaints. In contrast, at an early voting polling site, which opens prior to Election Day, individuals would need to produce identification before getting a ballot.

Furthermore, clerks are concerned that an increased number of voters would be disenfranchised under a no-excuse absentee ballot system. Already many absentee votes are disqualified and not counted because voters fail to sign the envelopes, mail them back too late or mismark their ballots. During the 2008 election in Missouri, 8,000 absentee ballots were not counted for these reasons. Those ballots could have changed the outcome of the election. At an early voting polling site, these voters would have been given another chance to vote their ballots correctly and not be disenfranchised…

No-excuse voting would also change the election season for candidates if residents were allowed to vote up to 30-days prior to Election Day, causing campaigns to start much earlier. Voters could be casting votes before they have all the information necessary to make an informed decision.

Yale Daily News: Absentee voting may not attract students

At Yale, the biggest challenge campus organizers face is not getting people to the polls on Election Day. Instead, the problem is getting people to register to vote in Connecticut in the first place, said Marina Keegan, president of the Yale College Democrats

As readers know we oppose expanded mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting for voting integrity issues. We recently covered reports that show early voting, including no-excuse absentee voting, actually DECREASES turnout. Now a story from Yale Daily News arguing why it may not increase student turnout: Absentee voting may not attract students <read>

Even if proposed changes to Connecticut elections bring more voters to the polls, Yalies may not be among them.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill unveiled exhaustive election reforms last week, including one, no-excuse absentee voting, that is designed to boost voter turnout by making voting easier. But while the expansion of Connecticut’s absentee ballot program, which currently restricts mail-in voting to the sick, elderly or out-of-state, may increase voter turnout overall, it is not likely to change the number of Yalies who vote, or how they do so, student and city activists said.

Av Harris, Merrill’s spokesman, said that of the secretary’s proposals, the constitutional amendment to allow for mail-in voting is most likely to impact students.

“The constitutional amendment is the one thing that could really improve the ability of students, and all voters, really, to vote,” Harris said. “But I think of students in particular because their schedules are so varied and it does become an issue of convenience,” Harris said, noting that not one university in the state has a polling station on campus.

At Yale, the biggest challenge campus organizers face is not getting people to the polls on Election Day. Instead, the problem is getting people to register to vote in Connecticut in the first place, said Marina Keegan, president of the Yale College Democrats. Roughly 1,100 students vote in Ward 1, and Keegan said the majority of those students vote at the New Haven Free Public Library, the ward’s Elm Street polling station.

“I think we miss the most votes from people who say, ‘Oh no, no, I’m gonna vote absentee at home,’” Keegan said, adding that they have no way of knowing how many of these people actually end up voting. “But it’s kind of a pain to vote absentee in your home state.”

Any type of absentee voting can be a pain for students, said New Haven Democratic Town Chair Susie Voigt. A former Yale employee herself, Voigt noted that students do not often check their mail, many do not have stamps on hand and going to the post office at all can be a hassle in itself.

“I never want to go to that post office — the line is like two miles long,” Voigt said of Yale Station.

As a result, Voigt said she doubts expanding absentee voting to anyone who wants to vote by mail will encourage Yalies to vote in Connecticut. And Michael Knowles ’12, an active Republican on campus, said he thinks students who want to vote will find a way to vote, and that the current system is not prohibitively difficult.