CGA Government Administration And Elections Committee

March 12, 2008 Public Hearing

Submitted By Christine S. Horrigan, Government Director

Comments on:

HB 5888 AAC Revisions to the Optical Scan Voting System

HB 5896 AAC The Publication of State Agency Regulations

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I am Government Director for the League of Women Voters of Connecticut, a statewide organization with over 2300 members dedicated to improving the electoral process and encouraging the active participation of citizens in government.  On behalf of the League, I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit written comments on HB 5888 and HB 5896.

HB 5888 AAC Revisions to the Optical Scan Voting System

As we have said many times, the League believes that the political process must be open to all citizens and the right to vote with confidence must be guaranteed.  The League strongly supports random, post-election manual audits as a means of ensuring the accuracy of the vote and instilling voter confidence in our elections. 

The League struggled with the way HB 5888 was written and is offering its comments based on our understanding.  Section 1 of the bill would establish an independent, professional audit team and replace Connecticut’s current system of percentage-based audits with a system of statistical power-based audits.  The League believes that statistical power-based audits are an alternative worthy of consideration to our current system and that the establishment of an independent audit team potentially allows for greater consistency in audits across the state, something sorely lacking based on our observations.  However, we have a number of questions and concerns regarding Section 1 of HB 5888, as currently drafted.

§         The language is not clear regarding the following audit “logistics”:

o       Who will be responsible for hiring the necessary personnel to complete the audits?

o       Who will be responsible for paying for the audits?

o       Where will audits be conducted, i.e. at a centralized location or at town locations?

o       How will towns that quickly “seat” the winners of an election meet the current statutory requirement that audits be completed prior to certification of the results? Should the bill require that the districts be selected immediately following Election Day?

§         We question giving Attorney General the exclusive right to appoint the audit team and recommend instead the creation of an independent board in a manner similar to other state boards.

§         While we lack the expertise to comment specifically on the statistical percentages in the bill, we are concerned about unintended consequences.  Rather than locking in percentages by statute, we recommend allowing the audit board to set statistical standards for the initial audits as well as any expansion of the audits.

§         To give the public sufficient opportunity to comment, we recommend including a specific timeframe for publication of audit procedures, assumptions and expansion criteria prior to any given election.   See Sections 1(c) (1) (B) and 8(A).

§         We believe that the audit team/board should be adequately funded.

Section 2 of HB 5888 would require that any recanvass in a municipality using marksense voting tabulators be conducted by hand count.  The League strongly supports this provision.  Because the margins in these races are so small and the state’s procedures are in a state of flux, we believe it is premature to consider a hybrid system of machine and manual recounts in recanvass situations. 

Finally, we support Section 3 of HB 5888, which improves the Voter’s Bill of Rights, and Sections 4, 5 and 6, which adopt measures to address privacy issues surrounding the voting experience in a consistent manner.  However, as we noted in our testimony on SB 444, AAC Certain Revisions and Technical Changes to the Election Laws, while Section ­­5 attempts to create a zone of privacy around the voting tabulator from encroachment by other voters, no attempt has been made to address the issue of the machine tenders standing too close to the machines – a frequent complaint of voters.  We again urge the Committee to look at whether this issue should also be addressed by statute or whether it is better left to regulation and procedure.

In summary, the League believes that there is “a lot of good” in HB 5888, but that best practices are the key.  Whether this proposal for statistical power-based audits is adopted or the legislature opts to continue with the percentage-based audits, it is critical that we have clear, uniformly implemented audit procedures.

HB 5896 AAC The Publication of State Agency Regulations

            The League believes that democratic government depends upon the informed and active participation of its citizens and requires that governmental bodies make public records accessible.  As a matter of transparency and convenience, we strongly support requiring state agencies to post their regulations on their websites.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be comment on these bills. 

League of Women Voters of Connecticut · 1890 Dixwell Avenue Hamden, CT 06514 · 203/288-7996

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