Secretary of the State and her Office significantly improve integrity and transparency of the random drawing
Report findings included:
Citizen Audit spokesperson Luther Weeks noted, “We applaud improvements made by the Secretary of the State and her Office. The drawing was significantly more accurate than last year and, for the first time, the Secretary chose races for audit publicly and transparently”
Two members of the Citizen Audit Board assisted the Secretary of the State by randomly drawing 68 districts in 40 municipalities across Connecticut for the post-election audit.
See the Press Release from the SOTS Office.
Citizen Audit Finds Little Improvement In Election Audits
Post-Election Audit Flaws Remain After Seven Years and Twelve Audits
The report concluded that the official audit results do not inspire confidence because of the continued:
Coalition spokesperson Luther Weeks noted, “When compared with audits in 2011 and 2012 we found little difference, positive or negative, on the issues previously identified and the level of concerns affecting confidence.
“Without adherence to procedures and effective follow-up, if there was ever a significant fraud or error, it might not be recognized and corrected.”
“Some officials follow the audit procedures and do effective work, yet a trusted audit requires that all the districts and all the votes be counted in the audit as intended.”
<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release> <Review detail data and municipal reports>
Citizen Study Finds State Audit Flawed From the Start
Post-Election Audit Flawed from the Start by Inaccurate List of Election Districts
Based on concerns with the integrity of the random drawing in previous elections, the Coalition initiated a project to thoroughly check the integrity of the list of districts in the drawing for the November 2013 election.
Coalition spokesperson Luther Weeks noted, “The credibility of our elections depends on the integrity of the Post-Election Audits. The integrity of the audits in-turn depends on the integrity of the drawing.”
The report found,
Coalition Finds Continuing Problems with Election Audit and A New Flaw
Post-Election Audit Flawed from the Start by Highly Inaccurate List
of Election Districts
The report concluded, the official audit results do not inspire confidence because of the:
Coalition finds 31% of Official Audit Reports Lack Critical Data
Municipalities failed to report data critical to audit evaluation. Increasing numbers choose paper only elections, avoiding scanners and audits.
The report highlighted concerns with two increasing trends:
We conclude, based on our observations and analysis of official audit reports submitted to the Secretary of the State, that the August post-election audits still do not inspire confidence.
<Full Report (.pdf)> <Press Release> <Review detail data and municipal reports>
Based on the size and relative simplicity of this audit, we provide an abbreviated report. We summarize the statistical information and observations, while we make no new recommendations.
Readers of past reports will note little change in our observations and conclusions; and little progress by officials in improving post-election audit integrity. Compared to past audits there were significantly fewer ballot count and race count differences in this audit. The fewer number of ballots and the single race to be counted contributed to this improved result. We are skeptical that this audit is an indication of future improvement.
Items of note include:
<Full Report (.pdf)> <Review detail data and municipal reports>
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:
<Full Report, Press Release, Excerpts> <Review detail data and municipal reports>
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.
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.