eTRICK or reTREAT? Nightmare of Elections Future

Editor’s Note:  Posted Halloween 2009.  Rush Holt has moved on from the House, yet we still face the danger of putting off needed reforms.

Like many voters, I am concerned about the integrity of this year’s election. Last night I was visited by three visions of elections future. From 2008, 2012 or 2016. I’m a little hazy on some of the details, but the visions were worse than anything yet imagined.

The Ghost Of Presidential Elections Future:
It seems the problems all stemmed from what happened in the 2008 election and its aftermath. Its a little hazy but the ghost warned of three possible outcomes:

Editor’s Note:  Posted Halloween 2009.  Rush Holt has moved on from the House, yet we still face the danger of putting off needed reforms.

Like many voters, I am concerned about the integrity of this year’s election. Last night I was visited by three visions of elections future. From 2008, 2012 or 2016. I’m a little hazy on some of the details, but the visions were worse than anything yet imagined.

The Ghost Of Presidential Elections Future:
It seems the problems all stemmed from what happened in the 2008 election and its aftermath. Its a little hazy but the ghost warned of three possible outcomes:

  1. The polls are said to be very very wrong:
    The people chose one candidate for President, but manipulations of the data, voter suppression, or Supreme Court action made the other candidate the winner. The media covers every reason but the obvious one that goes unreported. The really scary part was that the voters docilely accepted it – instead of hitting the streets, we all ended up on the streets over time.
  2. The polls are only off a “little”: The predicted candidate won the Presidency by a small margin. Instead of the predicted 58-60 Democrats in the Senate and 20 more in the House, there were 54-55 in the Senate and 5 more in the House. Activists continued to object and present a wealth of facts. They are dismissed by the media as “conspiracy theorists”.
  3. The polls were accurate: The election results were as predicted. The predicted candidate won the Presidency. There were 58-60 Democrats in the Senate and about 20 more in the House. A few hard core activists remained, were completely ignored by the media, yet continued the fight for election integrity. The potential of election theft remained, while the potential for election integrity all but vanished.

To paraphrase Walter Cronkite, “Nothing has changed, but your votes are not there”. The nightmare continued:

Beltway Lugosi Appears, The D.C. Goblin:
 How could this have happened? Surely by 2012 or by 2016 we would have had election integrity.

  1. Rep. Rush Holt proposes a better, stronger bill in 2009: The caucus says “what’s the rush Rush, come back later its too soon – we have important issues to deal with, there is plenty of time before the next Presidential Election”.
  2. A persistent Rush Holt proposes a better, stronger bill in 2010: – House Leadership says “its too much, work on it and come back next year”.
  3. Rush Holt proposes weakened bill in 2011 – Everyone says “Its too late, the election officials can’t get it done in a rush Rush, come back after the next election when there will be plenty of time”.
  4. Rush Holt proposes a better, stronger bill in 2009 and it passes the House – The Feinstein/Bennett bill is immediately resurrected in the Senate and passes – it is all put into a joint committee – the result is the “Star Wars” of voting with spending as far as the eye can see and even less voting integrity than 2008.

At least in Connecticut, we can rest assured that our votes will count, with our nickname, “The Constitution State”. Even if the voters approve the ballot question in 2008 to have a Constitutional Convention, surely we can rely on our other nickname, “The Land of Steady Habits” to carry the day and eventually, some day, protect our votes. The nightmare continued:

The Devil Is Truly In The details:

Connecticut earns its nickname, “The Nutmeg State“. When it comes to post-election audit law, the “Devil” is truly in the details.

  1. The Shays/Himes Congressional race is close, less than .5% There is a recanvass(recount). Since recounts are by machine, if Himes(D) loses, Secretary Bysiewicz(D) cannot call for a manual recount without being charged with being political. If Shays(R) loses, she would be under great pressure to reverse her decision to recount by machine.
  2. The Constitution question is close, less than .5%, and there is a recanvass(recount).
    Since recounts are by machine, if “No” loses, Secretary of the State Bysiewicz, a strong supporter of “No”, could not call for a manual recount without being charged with making a political decision. If “Yes” loses, she would be under great pressure to reverse her decision to recount by machine.Worse, a single statewide recount, by law, eliminates all post-election audits, even if the Shays/Himes Congressional race is close but over .5%.
  3. The Constitution question is close but over .5%:
    It will not be audited – questions are exempt from post-election audits in Connecticut
  4. The Shays/Himes Congressional race is close but over .5% and is not randomly selected for audit: We randomly select three offices for audit statewide. Instead of auditing close races for the U.S. Congress or the State Legislature we may waste resources excessively counting races with huge margins, or those with unopposed candidates, such as most races for Registrar of voters.

I am awake now. With hard work and some luck, the voters choices may be confirmed in the election results and the voters could awake after the election to stay eternally vigilant. Some may say that this is just a dream, but it is preferable to the alternative nightmare.

U.S. Map of Presidential Post-Election Audits

Verified Voting has created color coded map of the state of post-election audits of the Presidential race in each state: <view>

States are classified in 6 categories based on the existence and details of their post-election audit laws relative to the Presidential race and the 2008 election.

How does Connecticut rate? We are in the second best category with the state of Washington and behind fifteen states, which puts us ahead of thirty three states.

Why? We rate higher than most states because we have paper ballots and an audit. We are in the second tier because of our audit lottery – depending on the luck of the draw we will either audit the Presidential race or not. (Sadly we also have a fixed 10% audit of selected races, over auditing/spending in some races and under auditing/spending in other races)

Nationwide: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

We won’t go into all the details here, but in case you have not been keeping up, there have been many small and large problems occuring across the country lately.  It started with recent elections in Washington D.C., Palm Beach, and Rhode Island highlighted at CTVotersCount.org <read> <read> Now with early voting and problems with absentee voting we have several stories each day of election problems from around the country.  The best place to keep up is Daily Voting News – too many stories in one day to read them all <latest> Along with some good summary articles on some of the problems at BradBlog.

Commentary:

  • The Ugly: These incidents point out the ugly facts that every voter’s opportunity to vote is not effectively guaranteed, and that counting every vote, and counting every vote accurately is a myth. We must improve the system such that we can trust the final outcome of elections, even if counting every last vote is a ideal that may never be quite realized. We should have a fully protected right to vote.
  • The Bad: We may elect the wrong candidates or decide questions incorrectly through fraud, error, incompetence, and lack of vigilance. Many of these problems may be small and ultimately irrelevant to the result – many may be significant.
  • The Good: At least we are surfacing and highlighting these problems. Apparently many similar problems have been going on for years – but were either covered up, brushed aside, or just did not get the national attention deserved. More and more the public is becoming aware of the problems which is the first step toward solutions.

CT: Misstatements In Stamford Advocate

Three days ago we pointed out misleading statements made by the Secretary of the State on WNPR.

Now we see some similar misinformation in the Stamford Advocate. <read>

Was the Secretary of the State misquoted or misleading?

Legislation introduced this year that would have required poll workers to give all voters privacy folders and to maintain a “zone of privacy” around the ballot machines did not pass. But poll workers have been instructed to abide by such privacy rules nonetheless, Bysiewicz said.

Connecticut has one of the most carefully monitored voting systems in the United States, she said. Before and after every election, state officials send every ballot machine memory card to the University of Connecticut computer science department to be inspected for tampering or defects. And officials do a hand-count audit of 10 percent of all ballots cast.

“Connecticut is a leader in voting security and integrity because we don’t take the machine count as gospel,” Bysiewicz said.

We must give the benefit of the doubt to both the Secretary and the Stamford Advocate since the statements are not in quotes. All we can be sure of is that they are inaccurate and misleading.

  1. “Before and after every election, state officials send every ballot machine memory card to the University of Connecticut computer science department” – No! Some cards are sent to UConn before some elections, some cards are sent to UConn after some elections, sometimes cards have been sent by local election officials, and sometimes by our vendor, LHS in Massachusetts. Typically about one card per district or 25% are tested.See the reports from UConn.
  2. “And officials do a hand-count audit of 10 percent of all ballots cast” – No! Only those ballots counted by optical scanners in polling places are counted in the audit. Not audited are centrally counted absentee ballots originally counted by optical scanner and all ballots originally counted by hand.

CT: Are Connecticut Voters Left Behind By Web Site?

Update 3/21/2009: Another analysis rates CT’s election web site in the lower tier.
**************Original post:
PEW project report, Being Online Is Not Enough, State Elections Web Sites
Connecticut rates 48th out of 51 (50 states and D.C.)

Update  3/21/2009: Another analysis rates CT’s election web site in the lower tier: <read>

Update 3/26/2009: Author responds to state’s request for further clarification:

The following clarification of the above review, from the author, was passed on to us by Lesley Mara, Deputy Secretary of the State.  Deputy Mara also passed along the following link to an additional portal provided for last fall’s election:  http://www.vote-ez-ct.com/more-info.php

Deputy Mara stated “As you’ll see, our site serves its purpose according to Ethan Klapper.  As you know, we are part of the overall state portal and that may affect some of the design issues he refers to…”

From: Ethan Klapper
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 12:57 PM
To: Gilman, Michelle
Subject: Re: Connecticut SOTS website

Michelle–

Once again, thank you for contacting me. Before I continue, I want to let you know that I issued a clarification to this post yesterday: http://www.socialgovernment.com/2009/03/24/clarification-to-state-election-web-sites-post/

That being said, the content on the Connecticut Web site is definitely there — I did not have trouble finding anything. However, it’s not organized in the most efficient way — the “SOTS: Elections and Voting” page is a bit cluttered and could be intimidating to some.

Finally, the box on the left-hand side of the page “About the Secretary, News, Business Services, Elections and Voting, Resources, Contact Us” seems to “cut into” the content — especially the first set of links under the heading of “Elections and Voting.” Also, that box isn’t “padded” — meaning that the links it cuts into creep right up next to it without any spacing. This kind of confused me when I visited the Web site.

So that was my rationale, design-wise at least, for the low rating. However, the site definitely serves its purpose.

I apologize for any confusion that might have occurred. Hopefully this clarification will clear things up for everyone.

Thank You!

Ethan Klapper

Ethan Klapper
Founder and Editor
social GOVERNMENT
www.socialgovernment.com

On Mar 23, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Gilman, Michelle wrote:

Good afternoon,

Our office recently saw the report post on your blog regarding good/bad state election websites.

Last year, our office completed the first phase of a website redesign project and also launched “Vote Ez” to streamline voter education information.  However, we are always looking for ideas to improve our website and your suggestions would be very helpful in making additional assessments to do just that.

If possible, I would appreciate your forwarding me the report you compiled that compares state websites and the criteria you used to assess them to help us develop a stronger website.

Thank you for your assistance,

Michelle Gilman

Michelle Halloran Gilman
Chief of Staff
Office of Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz

**************Original post:
PEW project report, Being Online Is Not Enough, State Elections Web Sites <read>

PEW Reviews State Voting Web Sites and Asks:
– Can I Find It?
– Does It Work?
– Does It Help?

PEW Says Voters Ask:
– Am I Registered, or How Do I Register?
– Where Do I Vote?
– What Candidates and Issues Are On The Ballot?

Connecticut rates 48th out of 51 (50 states and D.C.)

Compare for yourself:
#1 Iowa
#2 Texas
#3 Utah
#4 Pennsylvania
#48 Connecticut

Report: Is America Ready To Vote?

Verified Voting, Common Cause, and the Brennan Center for Justice released a major report today: <press release> <report>

Is America Ready to Vote? State Preparations for Voting Machine Problems in 2008

States Get Mixed Reviews on Readiness for Voting Machine Problems — Citing Improvements, Election Experts Call for Backup Measures to Secure the Vote on Nov 4th

From the Press Release:

With millions of Americans expected to confront an array of voting technologies on Nov. 4, today election administration experts from the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and Verified Voting issued a 50-state report card that grades each state on its preparedness

“There’s no question that in the last few years, election officials around the country have made dramatic improvements that will make it much less likely that voters are disenfranchised due to voting system failures,” said Lawrence Norden, director of the Voting Technology Project at the Brennan Center. “Unfortunately, there is still much work to be done to ensure that every voter will get to vote and every vote will be counted if something goes wrong with voting systems on Election Day,” he stated.

Is America Ready to Vote? evaluates each state by four criteria: procedures for issuing emergency paper ballots, reconciling ballot tallies, providing paper records of votes cast, and post-election audits. The report reveals a broad range of preparedness across the country to address Election Day voting system meltdowns.

How does Connecticut rate? Continue reading “Report: Is America Ready To Vote?”

CT: Secretary Of The State: Misstatements on WNPR

(Note: We have offered the Secretary of the State’s Office an opportunity to comment on this post)

Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, was on “Where We Live” on WNPR this AM. She made several misstatements and misleading omissions (these are not exact quotes as we have no transcript)

Misstatement:
Bysiewicz: UConn tests the cards before they are used in the election.

Fact: UConn does pre-election testing of some cards before some elections and produces a report after the election. As far as we know none of the cards pre-election tested by UConn have been used in an election.

  • In Nov 07 the tests did not cover all districts and we have no reason to believe that the cards were selected randomly – and they showed that less than half of election officials fully followed procedures.
  • In the Feb 08 Presidential Primary there was no pre-election test.
  • In the Aug 08 Primary single cards were shipped to UConn from the vendor, LHS, for testing and not randomly selected.
  • Given this record, we cannot predict what method of testing will be used this November.

Fact: CTVotersCount.org pushed for 100% pre-election testing of memory cards by UConn under a transparent chain-of-custody and controls. The Secretary of the State and the Government Elections and Administrations Committee supported this.  However, the bill was not taken up by the Legislature and the Secretary of the State has not chosen to pursue such testing. This would cost money, but so does the campaign to educate voters in filling out ballots.

Misstatement:
Bysiewicz: LHS invented the Diebold AccuVote-OS optical scanner.

Fact: This was debunked here the last time we heard the Secretary make this misstatement in March: <read>

Omission:
Bysiewicz: Your paper ballots will be counted in the audit.

Fact: Only some paper ballots will be counted in the audit – only those counted by machine in the district – exempt are centrally counted absentee ballots, ballots hand counted in precincts etc.

Omission:
Bysiewicz: In close elections in a recount each ballot is checked by two individuals.

Fact: The Secretary did not mention that most ballots are then simply counted again by machine. See recent events in Washington D.C. to understand the practical dangers of such recounting <read>

Omission:
Bysiewicz: Our 10% audit is the toughest in the country.

Fact: The 10% is only one parameter. Our audit law has many loopholes and exemptions which make it less than adequate <read>

Fact: Actual observations of the audits have shown them to be of questionable credibility. <read>

UTC Ends Bid To Buy Diebold

Hartford Courant article <read>

In a letter to Diebold released Monday, UTC Chairman George David said UTC was withdrawing its offer of $40 a share, which valued Diebold at about $2.6 billion…

On Sept. 30, Diebold filed a late 2007 annual report with securities regulators. It also filed revised quarterly reports for the second and third quarters of 2007 and the first two quarters of 2008. Securities Exchange Commission and Justice Department investigations of Diebold’s accounting practices remain open.

Earlier coverage of Diebold’s problems<here>