<Full Report, Press Release, Detail Data>
<Executive Summary>
<Audit Integrity, Organization, and Chain of Custody>
<Audit vs. Scanner Counts>
<Recommendations>
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.
The report concluded:
The November post-election audits still do not inspire confidence because of the continued:
- failure in the integrity of the random district selection process,
- lack of standards for determining need for further investigation of discrepancies,
- weaknesses in the ballot chain of custody, and
- lack of consistency, reliability, and transparency in the conduct of the audit.
The level of discrepancies reported has increased from the November 2009 post-election audits.
Among our greatest concerns are the discrepancies between machine counts and hand-counts reported to the Secretary of the State by municipalities. In many cases, these discrepancies are not thoroughly and reasonably explained. In some cases the explanations make no sense or contradict the data in municipalities’ reports. We believe that the lack of organization, planning, and ad-hoc counting procedures used by many municipalities were not sufficient to count accurately and efficiently. We find no reason to attribute all errors to either humans or machines.
In our August 2010 Report, we noted a newly recognized problem: “the inaccurate list of districts used in the random selection process which is required by law to be based on all of the districts used in the election. This directly impacts the integrity and credibility of the entire post-election audit.” Once again, in the November 2010 random selection, without extensive investigation, an advocate quickly discovered a district missing from the list of districts in the random drawing.
In this report we note another inadequacy in the audit law. One district initially selected was not audited because ballots were impounded based on a complaint to the State Election Enforcement Commission. … This represents a new formula for an individual to preclude auditing of a specific district to avoid the discovery of an error or fraud. Our existing recommendations to improve the law, had they been enacted by the Legislature, would have eliminated this opportunity.
This year the audits were particularly challenging for the Coalition, our observers, and election officials. In this election the law mandated that the audits be completed two days prior to certification, requiring that all municipal counting must all be completed between November 17th and 22nd, where in previous large scale audits there was often a period of two to three weeks for the counting. In addition, the districts for audit were chosen just two days prior to the start of the counting period, on November 15, 2010, while in past elections the selection has occurred six or seven days prior to the audit period.
The short time for completion and the short time interval after the drawing, caused challenges for the Coalition, our observers, and election officials. Several audits occurred on November 17th and 18th which violated the Secretary of the State’s procedures which require three business days notice to the public and the Secretary of the State’s office.
<Full Report, Press Release, Detail Data>
<Executive Summary>
<Audit Integrity, Organization, and Chain of Custody>
<Audit vs. Scanner Counts>
<Recommendations>
