Letter to the Glastonbury Citizen

On April 12th the Citizen ran the following in the editor's column:

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz says Diebold Accuvote Scan voting machines tested in 25 towns this past November showed no significant problems. With the successful test in the books, Bysiewicz says the machines will be in all 169 Connecticut towns by this fall's election. Voters cast ballots by using a pencil to fill in an oval next to the candidate name on a paper ballot. The paper is then fedd into an optical scanner for a count; the paper ballots are kept as a backup if a recount is needed.

Here is my letter to the editor published April 19th:

“Good news” audits insufficient

I take exception to the good news from Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz in the Citizen, April 12.

To say that Diebold optical scan voting machines “showed no significant problems” may be technically accurate, if substantial discrepancies are ignored or explained away. November election audit data reported discrepancies of over 10 votes in 14 races in just the towns of East Hartford and Wethersfield, with the highest discrepancies being 72, 82, and 105. Each is greater than the margin in Glastonbury for State Representative and near the 91 vote margin in the entire 2nd Congressional race.

It is important that “paper ballots are kept as a backup if a recount is needed”. It is equally important to note that Connecticut statutes do not mandate a paper recount in the case of a close election. In the recanvass ordered in the 2nd District this last November, the paper ballots were not manually recounted.

In February Secretary Bysiewicz issued an encouraging press release proposing an audit of 20% of all polling places for 100% of races saying, “The 20-percent requirement in Connecticut would be among the highest the Nation”. Subsequently she substituted 10% of polling places for a meager three races. Her bill also includes a clause that eliminates auditing of any voting machines in the event of a state wide recount or contest in one race.

Most disappointing, all audit decisions are in the hands of the Secretary of the State, who is responsible for choosing the equipment, training election staff, and conducting elections. The Cleveland State University Center for Election Integrity has stated to the U.S. House of Representatives, that there can be little credibility in “good news” audits as “auditing under the SOS cannot completely avoid conflicts of interest that are incompatible with rigorous objectivity and full public accountability”.