Voter Rolls: No Grave Concern

Update: Secretary of the State’s <press release>

A UConn study reported in the Hartford Courant demonstrates that the ultimate disability is not a barrier to voting in Connecticut: Dead Voters? Probe Finds Errors In Records, <read>. The deceased continue on the voter rolls and occasionally vote.

a list of more than 300 people across Connecticut who appear to have voted from the grave in elections dating to 1994, a two-month investigation of voting records by journalism students at the University of Connecticut has found.

The mysterious voters were identified by matching a statewide database of 2 million registered voters and their voting histories with two separate computer lists of dead people maintained by the state Department of Public Health and the federal Social Security Administration.

Following up on the matches, UConn students examined the records of nearly 100 of the suspect voters at 10 town and city halls among those with the most cases. Guilford led the state with 39, followed by West Hartford (17), Enfield (15), Stonington (13) and Norwalk (11).

Some people appeared to have voted frequently after death, the research found. In Hebron, for example, records show one man voted 17 times after he died in 1992.

The investigation also identified more than 8,500 people listed as dead who are still registered to vote in Connecticut, most long after their deaths. In Hamden, one woman remained a registered voter although she died in 1979…

All but nine of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities listed dead people on active voter rolls. At least 100 cases were identified in each of 28 cities and towns. In New Haven alone, 370 dead people were still registered; in Enfield there were 321; in West Haven, 310; in Hartford, 298; and in Bridgeport, 293.

While there are serious problems with Connecticut’s online voter registration system, concerns with deceased voters center around the antiquated clerical systems and local election administration:

Continue reading “Voter Rolls: No Grave Concern”

Reform Moves Forward In Connecticut

While Federal reform is delayed, reform moved forward yesterday in Connecticut. The General Assembly Appropriations Committee passed H.B. 5888 with a joint favorable recommendation to the Legislature. On March 19th, the Government Administration and Elections Committee also passed the bill with a joint favorable recommendation.

H.B. 5888, An Act Concerning Revisions To The Optical Scan Voting System, makes one large future leap forward, along with several small and moderate improvements to increase election integrity in the near term. Its most important provision is to create an independent audit board:

Not later than December 1, 2008, the board shall develop standards and procedures for conducting audits of elections and primaries. In developing such standards and procedures, the board shall be cognizant of the current level of science utilized in the area of election auditing. Additionally, subject to any other provisions of law, such standards and procedures shall enable any such audit to commence within forty-eight hours of the time when state election officials announce the final unofficial vote in each district…

An Independent Audit Board will provide an opportunity to dramatically revise our current post-election audits which are inadequate and have proven ineffective in practice.

Another notable provision is for the 100% independent testing of memory cards within the State of Connecticut, prior to their shipment to registrars. This one provision alone will go a long way to prevent errors and fraud, while greatly reducing the burden of “junk” memory cards imposed on registrars:

Not later than October 1, 2008 … the Secretary of the State shall select a separate entity that shall be responsible for the testing of such memory cards: (1) After such programming but prior to shipment to registrars of voters, and (2) after the applicable election. Such testing shall be located within the state. The Secretary of the State shall implement procedures for the secure transport of such memory cards to and from the entities described in this section.

While we would have stronger audits, codified, and started sooner, we fully support the bill as it will move Connecticut forward with an Independent Audit Board, while in the meantime increasing election integrity.

Our thanks to the GAE Committee leadership for holding public hearings across the state < 1 2 3 4 5 >, developing, and supporting this bill. We also thank the Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, for her support of the Independent Audit Board which will provide an audit entirely independent of her office.

Much work remains to be accomplished. The most pressing item is passing H.B. 5888 by the full legislature.

Holt Bill Fails To Get Required 2/3 Of House

The Holt Emergency Bill, H.R. 5036, which we support, failed by 239 to 178 to get a required two-thirds margin in the House of Representatives. AlterNet has the story <read>

CTVotersCount thanks the entire Connecticut House Delegation for voting for the bill, with especial thanks to Representative Courtney, a co-sponsor. We also appreciate the work of Speaker Pelosi who worked to move the bill forward. We appreciate Rush Holt for his continuing efforts since 2003.

We are not surprised by this development, just disappointed that so much damage was caused so quickly by Washington’s Help America Vote Act, and that to road to correcting the problems is so long. Last year we supported Representative Rush Holt’s long term bill, H.R. 811, co-sponsored by 226 members of the house and lobbied Congress in 2006 for its predecessor. Our understanding is that Representative Holt will continue to work on the long term bill – we intend to continue our support.

Let me boldly predict that without unity behind a good bill, 2009 will be “too soon” to worry about election reform in Congress with other more pressing needs and that 2010, like 2008, will be “too late” to correct anything before an election.

Holt responded to the GOP’s main objection to the bill, its cost.

“I’d like to ask the opponents how much spending is too much to have verifiable elections in the United States,” he said. “I note that many people who opposed this legislation supported spending almost $330 million in recent years to provide election assistance in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. I would have hoped those who supported efforts to export democracy abroad would be equally committed to strengthening democracy here at home.”

Continue reading “Holt Bill Fails To Get Required 2/3 Of House”

Will The Voter Registration System Be Fixed In Time?

Stamford Advocate: State fixing voter system after primary glitches, <read>

Will the pressure on the Secretary of the State’s Office and the Department of Information Technology be sufficient such that the system will actually be fixed to function when it is most needed?

For background, see our our earlier coverage of the Norwich Public Hearings. Let us hope that the “fix” by April 24th includes some realistic stress testing of the system.

From the Advocate:

Continue reading “Will The Voter Registration System Be Fixed In Time?”

Why We Need Manual Recounts And Audits

They used optical scan! They had the paper! How could the wrong candidate be elected? (See Myth #9 )

Governor’s race decided by margin of 0.2% with highly questionable results. But not recounted or audited. Democratic Underground has the story <read>. Here are the pertinent details:

A close look at the 2002 Alabama Governor’s race suggests that the fraud perpetrated in that election was more obvious than even the 2000 or 2004 U.S. Presidential elections. The final official results were Riley 672,225, Siegelman 669,105 – a difference of 3,120 votes, representing a margin of 0.2% of the total.

The initial vote count for Governor for Baldwin County, reported from the Bay Minette tabulator at 10:45 p.m., was quite surprising to say the least. It reported: Riley (R) 30,142, Siegelman (D) 11,820, and the Libertarian candidate, John Sophocleus, 13,190. Although it was expected that Siegelman would lose Baldwin County, the margin of the loss not believable, as he had lost Baldwin County in the Governor’s race in 1998 by only a little over four thousand votes. Furthermore, the idea of his losing to the Libertarian candidate was not plausible.

Result: Free lodging for the ‘sore loser’, but not in the Governor’s Mansion:

Continue reading “Why We Need Manual Recounts And Audits”

Voting Machines vs. Slots – Which Do We Protect More?

How we actually treat Voting Machines vs. Las Vegas Slot Machines – Does it indicate our priorities and how important we consider Democracy? From the Washington Post <read and compare>

Of course this may or may not apply to Connecticut Slots, but as we covered here, we seem to hold electric meters to a higher standard <read>. Maybe its energy, since we seem to hold energy companies to a high standard, beyond that of voting machine companies <read>.

FEC ‘Toothless,’ ‘Neutered,’ and ‘A Paralyzed Enforcer’

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” – Mark Twain

What Me Worry Department <read>.  Truth, not fiction, from Buzzflash, not Mad Magazine.  Nothing of consequence going on this year, right?.

The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and The New York Times have reported or commented on the troubling FEC impasse. In essence, Bush nominated a person whom the Senate Democrats will not accept. (He served temporarily as a recess appointee until January.) In turn, the Senate Republicans refuse to confirm any nominated Democrat. Bush is sitting on his hands now, unwilling to suggest a different Republican nominee.

Nice kettle of fish. And really, why should any of them budge? Continue reading “FEC ‘Toothless,’ ‘Neutered,’ and ‘A Paralyzed Enforcer’”

The Company That Can’t Or Won’t Count

Forbes Magazine, Diebold a Reluctant Takeover Target <read>

I am not encouraged by the prospect of a military contractor taking over our voting machines. On the other hand UTC could certainly provide a higher quality product if they chose to keep and fund the voting machine division.

“The New York Stock Exchange has notified Diebold that it is at risk of delisting due to management’s failure to file timely financial statements,” Geisler said…

Diebold shareholders are somewhat in the dark, and not just by lack of SEC revenue and earnings filings. The company’s annual meeting of shareholders, which usually is held each April at a college campus near its Canton headquarters, has been postponed indefinitely.

Update: Its not just their accountants that can’t count: <read>

A failure in Diebold touch-screen voting systems in Butler County, OH resulted in votes not being included properly in Election Night results, even though the system had reported that all votes were uploaded and recorded correctly. Once the error was discovered, a subsequent upload of all of the county’s 1599 touch-screen memory cards to the Diebold central election tabulator after the election, also resulted in the failure to record the results of one of the memory cards, despite the system having reported that all results were “uploaded properly.”

Cost Of Touch Screens (Up To 8x The Cost of Op Scan)

Kim Zetter covers the costs of touch screens in Maryland in the Wired article, The Cost of E-Voting, <read>

We are proud of our support of optical scan for Connecticut. In addition to being safer and more auditable, they cost Connecticut about 1/2 as much to purchase and are even more economical to maintain and audit. In the recent statewide hearings we heard complaints from registrars of the costs of optical scan, which are much less than we would have hand with touch screens.

Also note that it is Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) who is responsible for delaying the Holt Emergency bill H.R. 5036 and insisting it pay for adding paper trials to touch screens. (Although we strongly support H.R 5036, we would much prefer it pay only for optical scan equipment). Note also that MD will be converting to optical scan machines in 2010 and paying again.

Now for what we are missing: Continue reading “Cost Of Touch Screens (Up To 8x The Cost of Op Scan)”

Internet Voting is Too Risky for Public Elections

We have criticized the DNC for accepting and promoting Internet voting for expat delegates to the convention. This set a completely wrong precedent. It does not take much to imagine the intimidation possible with an internet voting machine set up in a military base, union hall, nursing home, or church.

By Verified Voting Foundation
April 03, 2008

The Verified Voting Foundation issued a warning today that the Internet is not safe for casting ballots in important public elections. Many computer scientists and others are concerned because Internet voting was used in the Democratic Party’s Presidential primary for overseas voters in February, and because several state and national legislators recently have expressed an interest in Internet voting as an option for military service personnel overseas.

“Internet voting is vulnerable to all the risks of paperless computerized voting machines; it allows no meaningful recounts or audits,” said Barbara Simons, a computer scientist and expert on Internet voting. “If ballots are cast on the Internet, attacks on the election can be made by anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world, including individual hackers, political parties, international criminal organizations, hostile foreign governments, or even terrorists.”

“The Internet could be used to make voting easier, by, for example, allowing military and overseas voters a convenient way to obtain an absentee ballot, but votes delivered over the Internet cannot be trusted,” said David Dill, professor of computer science at Stanford University and founder of the Verified Voting Foundation. “Multiple studies by computer scientists have shown that making Internet voting safe is an incredibly hard problem, not solved yet, and possibly unsolvable. At this point, any claims of ‘secure Internet voting’ should be regarded with extreme skepticism.”