Executive Summary
After the November 2010 municipal election, Connecticut conducted its seventh large-scale post-election audit[1]. This was also the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition’s seventh large audit observation. The coalition includes the League of Women Voters of Connecticut, Connecticut Common Cause, Connecticut Citizen Action Group, and Connecticut Voters Count. The purpose of the observation was to demonstrate citizen interest in the process, increase citizen involvement in elections, provide feedback to the Secretary of the State and the Connecticut Legislature on the audit process, and provide the public with information necessary to determine their confidence in our elections.
By law, the Secretary of the State is required, in each election, to select at random 10% of Connecticut’s voting districts to participate in post-election audits and select races for audit, “…in the case of an election where the office of Governor is on the ballot, all offices required to be audited by federal law, plus one additional office selected in a random drawing by the Secretary of the State, but in no case less than three offices,…” In this election, for the first time, the Secretary chose to audit the race for Governor and randomly select two races for audit[2].
In this report, 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 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.
Compared with previous reports of the post-election audits:
- The bulk of our general observations and concerns remain.
- As we cautioned in our August report, the accuracy of counting and completion of forms has slipped back to that seen in other November post-election audits.
- The level of discrepancies reported has increased over 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. The audit law states: “If a selected voting district has an office that is subject to recanvass or an election or primary contest pursuant to the general statutes, the Secretary shall select an alternative district.” However, since this was not an “election contest” it did not apparently require an alternate district be selected. 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.
We note continuing failures to follow audit and chain-of-custody procedures. We emphasize that this report does not question any individual’s integrity. However, a safe, credible system of security procedures should not permit a single individual to have any extended opportunity to handle records and ballots unobserved.
Neither the random selection of races nor investigations of discrepancies after the audits are required to be public or noticed to the public. The extent to which they are not noticed, not made public, or are prohibitively difficult to observe, impacts the integrity and credibility of the entire post-election audit.
Recommendations
In our previous reports, the Coalition made recommendations to the legislature and the Secretary of the State to improve the post-election audit laws, by providing for an independent audit board, improved chain-of-custody procedures, and improved audit procedures. The latest version of those recommendations is contained in our August 2010 report which have been updated and included in Appendix C of this report.
Audit procedures continue to present challenges for elections officials. We observed several failures to follow prescribed procedures. Compared to previous observations, we noted less difficulty in implementing efficient and accurate counting methods, and less inaccurate or incomplete reporting. We continue to strongly recommend that best practices for effective counting procedures be established. Coalition members and observers would welcome the opportunity to contribute to the development of such best practices[3].
Even in these challenging economic times, many of our recommendations can be implemented to strengthen the post-election audits, make them more comprehensive, and provide a more efficient process with enhanced integrity without significant additional expense.
[1] In this document we will frequently use the term “audit” when we mean “post-election audit” or “post-election audit counting session”. Technically we believe that the whole process encompassing everything from the preservation of records, random drawings, counting in municipalities, the report by the University of Connecticut, and the evaluation of that report by the Secretary of the State would be the “audit”. However, for readability we will usually follow the common practice of using “audit” to refer to parts of the whole.
[2] In the only other similar election, when Presidential Electors were on the ballot in Nov 2008, the Secretary chose to audit all five races on the ballot, rather than choose or randomly select races.
[3] In the spring of 2010 the Secretary of the State’s Office initiated a committee to review and recommend changes to the audit procedures. The committee included two representatives of Coalition members and a total of four registrars. Unfortunately, after two meetings, extensive review, and extensive recommendations, the Secretary of the State’s Office, due to time constraints, was only able to make a few changes to the existing procedures.
