CTElectionAudit.org

Nov 2011 Election Audit Observation Report – Data Available for Public Review

editor — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:21:20 +0000

Coalition finds continuing problems with audit integrity Provides calculations and official data on the web for public review and verification

For the first time, in the interest of public information and transparency, we are making all official municipal audit reports and the data we complied available for everyone to review on the web. Citizens can see the reports from their own town, other towns, and perform their own audit of the Coalition’s data entry and calculations based on those official reports. The November post-election audits still do not inspire confidence because of the continued:

Lack of integrity in the random district selection and race selection processes.
Lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
Discrepancies between machine counts and hand-counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities and the lack of standards for determining need for further investigation of discrepancies.
Weaknesses in the ballot chain-of-custody.

Nov 2010 Election Audit Observation Report

editor — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:41:03 +0000

Coalition calls again for legislature to act. Citizen observation and analysis show little, if any, improvement in November post-election audits.

The Coalition noted significant differences between results reported by optical scanners and the hand count of ballots by election officials across Connecticut. Compared to previous audits, the Coalition noted little, if any, improvement in the attention to detail and in following procedures in the November 2010 audits.

Bridgeport Recount Report and Recommendations

editor — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:30:32 +0000

Votes were miscounted and miscalculated adding votes to each candidate, but not changing winner in the race for governor

Each candidate for the governor’s race gained votes in the recount when compared to the officially reported results, as follows: Foley (+174), Malloy (+761), and Marsh (+19). These differences parallel candidate shares in the initially reported results. Counting of all ballots in the governor’s race resulted in differences in many counts, totaling 1,520 votes miscounted, of these 1,236 were initially under reported and 284 were initially over reported. Simply printing more ballots only reduces the chance of the specific problem that occurred in Bridgeport. There are other causes that could result in a municipality having to scramble to photocopy ballots or perform hand counting such as a massive power failure or ballots lost in a fire, flood, or accident shortly before or during Election Day.

Aug 2010 Post-Election Audit Observation Report – Incremental Improvement – New Integrity Concern

editor — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:19:05 +0000

Citizen observation and analysis shows some improvements along with a newly uncovered problem with the random selection process...We conclude that August post-election audits still do not inspire confidence

the list of polling districts for the random audit drawing was missing some districts and is otherwise inaccurate and ambiguous. The integrity of the audit requires an accurate list of districts that is verifiable by the public. We have extended our recommendations to the Legislature to include an efficient fix to this problem.

Sign-Up for our Mailing List to Observe Future Post-Election Audits

editor — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:55:36 +0000

Our observers are committed to democracy, including election integrity. Without their participation nobody but a few local officials would know what occurs in the audits.

Nov 2009 Observation Report – Improvement, Yet Still Unsatisfactory

editor — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:00:06 +0000

The Coalition noted significant differences between results reported by optical scanners and the hand count of ballots by election officials across Connecticut. Compared to previous audits, the Coalition noted small incremental improvements in the attention to detail, following procedures, and in the chain-of-custody.

In this report, we conclude that the November post-election audits still do not inspire confidence. We find no reason to attribute all errors to either humans or machines.

Nov 2008 Observation Report – Large Differences From Optical Scanner Totals

admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:30:27 +0000

We conclude, based on our observations and analysis of audit reports submitted to the Secretary of the State that the November post-election audits still do not inspire confidence…Among our greatest concerns are the discrepancies between machine counts and hand-counts reported to the Secretary of the State by several municipalities. In many cases, these discrepancies are not thoroughly and reasonably explained. We believe that the ad-hoc counting procedures used by many municipalities were not sufficient to count ballots accurately and efficiently

In some cases as many as twenty-four (24) fewer ballots were counted by hand than recorded by optical scanners. For individual candidate races, vote counts between hand counts and scanner tapes varied by as much as three-hundred-sixty-six (366) votes in one race or as much as 46% in another.

We find no reason to attribute all errors to either humans or machines.

Aug 2008 Primary Election Observation Report

admin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:00:26 +0000

Despite continued improvements to the published procedures, the August post-election audit observations do not inspire increased confidence... the lack of standards and detailed guidance, and the lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit continues. We find potential risks to the integrity of and confidence in the reported results of post-election audits based on the lack of uniformly secure ballot storage and access. Looking forward, we doubt the current ad-hoc counting procedures used by most municipalities will prove sufficient to accurately and efficiently count ballots considering the expected volume in the November 2008 election.

Feb 2008 Presidential Primary Observation Report

admin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:48:07 +0000

many of the audits, as observed, leave us uncertain as to whether an error or fraud would have been detected in an audited race where we were not present to observe. We also question the security of the chain of custody to protect the integrity of ballots before the audits and to protect the integrity of ballots and tabulators after the audits such that further audits and investigations could effectively be performed.

Nov 2007 Municipal Elections Audit Observation Report

admin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:38:26 +0000

Many of the audits, as observed, leave us uncertain as to whether an error or fraud would have been detected in an audited race in this election...The coalition recommends that the Secretary of the State provide local elections officials with specific directions for auditing and reporting, make a full public report of all post-election audit results, and establish clear criteria for further investigation of audit discrepancies.