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After You Vote:
Help Make Sure Your Vote Counts
Become a Volunteer Post-Election Audit Observer
The
Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition was formed to
organize citizens to observe
Connecticut’s post-election audits.
Without our volunteer observers, nobody but a small
number of local election officials would know what happens
in post-election audits.
Observers have reported that the observations are a great
opportunity for learning about our election system and the
challenges faced by election officials.
Observers also appreciate the opportunity to
contribute directly to election integrity and democracy
itself.
To fully cover the November 2008 post-election
audit, we need more observers, in every region of the state.
<read more
about becoming and observer>
|
Released
Oct 14, 2008: Coalition
Report Aug 2008 Primary: |
From the Press Release and Report:
The Report
<read>
Press Release <read>
Coalition Releases Audit Report on August
Primary:
Raises concerns with audit credibility and
potential problems for November
post-election audit.
Despite continued improvements to the
published procedures, the August
post-election audit observations do not
inspire increased confidence.
We continue to observe that voters
make few errors and that properly programmed
and functioning tabulators count votes
accurately.
However, the lack of standards and
detailed guidance,
and the lack of consistency,
reliability, and transparency in the conduct
of the audit continues.
Our
further focus on the chain-of-custody
surfaced another potential concern in audit
credibility.
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.
The current haphazard ad-hoc processes are
insufficient, inefficient, and are likely to
break down in larger elections such as the
upcoming presidential election, just as they
did in the 2007 November Municipal election.
We are not questioning any individual’s
integrity; however, we do not believe a
secure system is one that relies on single
individuals with opportunity to alter
records. The lack of uniform security of the
ballots diminishes confidence in the
integrity of the ballots counted in an
audit.
|
Released Apr 3, 2008:
Coalition Report Feb 2008
Presidential Primary:
|
From the Press Release and Summary:
The Report
<read .pdf>
Coalition Releases 2nd
Post-Election Audit Report:
Procedures Alone Insufficient For Effective
Election Audits
Coalition report on
post-presidential-primary audits finds
inadequate adherence to procedures and
recommends additional changes in the law.
We report the good news that procedures
have been significantly improved and that
discrepancies noted in the counts in
February post election audit were much lower
than November. We are also pleased to report
that, for the most part, registrars fully
supported the portion of the procedures
providing significantly improved observation
opportunities for observers. These
procedures allowed us to visually verify
that ballots were being counted accurately
and totals reported were accurately
accumulated from those counts.
Unfortunately, now that procedures have been
improved, the audit observations have
exposed the lack of understanding of those
procedures, lack of understanding of the
principles behind the procedures, lack of
attention to those procedures, and apparent
lack of ability for election officials to
follow those procedures.
The February audit observations leave us
with the information necessary to vouch for
the accuracy of the hand-counting results we
observed. However, 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.
|
Released Jan 16, 2008: Coalition Report Nov 2007
Election:
|
The Report
<read .pdf>
Statistics Summary
<read .pdf>
Statistics Detail Data
<view .xls>
(Note: The
statistics detail is an Excel spreadsheet
with multiple worksheets.
We have seen
problems
viewing it with some browsers.)
From the Press Release:
Coalition Says Changes Needed in Election Audits
Four
good government groups have proposed 18 recommendations to
improve the state’s post-election audit process to assure
the integrity of the vote in
Connecticut.
Hartford,
Connecticut
-- Today the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition
recommended 18 steps to a more effective and meaningful
post-election audit process for all future elections in the
state. The
group’s report summarized the observations of more than 50
impartial citizen observers at 31 state-mandated
post-election audits conducted by local officials following
November’s municipal elections.
Observers came from the membership ranks of the
coalition partners—the League of Women Voters of
Connecticut, Common Cause
Connecticut, the Connecticut Citizen
Action Group, and CTVotersCount.
Coalition spokesperson Luther Weeks
noted, “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. More rigorous controls and
consistency in manual counting procedures are needed
throughout the state, along with follow-up investigations to
explain variations in the tallies to attribute discrepancies
either to machine or to human error. ”
League Vice President Cheryl Dunson
stated that, “in light of the growing use of electronic
voting technology throughout the country, elections
officials and good government groups are re-examining their
election operations. 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”.
The group urged state elections officials to seek out
national efforts on “best practices” for conducting audits
and ensuring maximum transparency in the audit process.
