Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, mailed a detailed letter on January 23rd, to each voter who signed the CTVotersCount.org petition. We responded on February 2nd with a follow-up letter to Secretary Bysiewicz.
Secretary Bysiewicz letter: <Page1> <Page2>
Our response text: <.pdf>
TO: The Honorable Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz
CTVotersCount Petition SignersWe have all received the attached letter from Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz. We thank the Secretary of the State for taking the time to respond to us in a such thoughtful and detailed letter, addressing our petition.
There is much to applaud in the letter and in the operation of the Secretary of the State’s Office.
We applaud the openness of the Secretary of the State’s Office, their willingness to listen to citizens, their willingness to meet with advocates, and their efforts to improve the election and post-election audit process. We especially appreciate the Office’s and Deputy Lesley Mara’s cooperation in supporting the start and ongoing efforts of the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition, specifically in letting us know the dates of audits scheduled by towns and responsive sharing of the audit reports. Your work with UConn on voting security studies and memory card testing is truly unique and valuable.
Like the Secretary of the of the State’s Office, CTVotersCount works with several national, state, and Connecticut groups to improve voting integrity. We appreciate Deputy Mara’s review of the “Principles and Best Practices for Post-Election Audits” to which we contributed and endorse.
We agree to disagree whether the audits as performed are “inaccurate, unreliable, and ineffective” and that our audit law is the “strongest in the country”.
We agree “that all audit activities should occur in public”. We note disappointment that our request at the meeting on January 16th and via email, to have the audit follow-up site visits opened to public observation and notification provided to us, was not acted upon.
We join with you, Secretary Bysiewicz, in standing for the criticality of continuing the audits. We appreciate your support of our petition requests to perform the audits sooner, 100% memory card pre-testing, and the institution of an independent audit board. There are many additional items that we remain committed to as listed in our petition, the Coalition recommendations, the Principles and Best Practices, and the recently released “League of Women Voters Audit Report”.
We also join with you, Secretary Bysiewicz, in recognizing that audits are a small price to pay to provide integrity and confidence to the voters of Connecticut.
Sincerely,
Luther G. Weeks
Executive DirectorCC: The Honorable M. Jodi Rell, Governor
Co-Chars and Members, Government Administration and Elections Committee
