Audits in Connecticut
By George Barnett, TrueVoteCT
November 17, 2006The Connecticut Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, announced that Democrat Joe Courtney defeated the incumbent Republican Rob Simmons in the 2nd Congressional District (CD-2) House race after a recanvass was completed. Courtney, who led by a mere 167 votes after the original count on election night, ended up with only 91 more votes than Simmons. Secretary Bysiewicz went on to explain the audit procedures that will take place in the Connecticut towns, outside of CD-2, that used optical scanners in the 2006 election.
In August of 2006, optical scan voting machines were selected to replace the lever machines in 25 out of 169 towns in Connecticut. In addition, the IVS telephone voting system was purchased for every town in the state to meet the accessibility requirements in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Connecticut chose to purchase AccuVote-OS optical scanners from Diebold Election Systems, Inc.. LHS Associates of Massachusetts was designated to carry out the provisions of the state’s contract with Diebold. Several computer scientists, including Dr. Alex Shvartsman and the University of Connecticut's Department of Computer Science and Engineering, have found serious security flaws in the AccuVote-OS optical scanners.
Bysiewicz told a crowded room of reporters at the press conference that 17 machines, or 20% of the scanners used outside CD-2, would be recounted by hand. The totals from the hand recounts would then be compared to the totals calculated by the scanners. This type of audit should determine if the scanners counted the ballots accurately. The audits will be completed by Nov. 28, before the elections are certified. After Bysiewicz fielded questions from the press, a League of Women Voters representative randomly selected papers from a box to determine the 17 scanners that will be audited. A different League of Women Voters representative and a TrueVoteCT member verified that each scanner outside of CD-2 had a properly marked piece of paper in the box before the selection took place.
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