Sens. Harding & Sampson: “CT voters need to have confidence that election results are accurate.”

Lawmakers, ACLU call for reforms after report on CT election errors

CT Insider

Lawmakers from both parties, as well as the ACLU of Connecticut, called for action Monday in light of a CT Insider report on apparent data errors in certified election results from 2016 and 2020.

“We need to find out what happened and why, and then we need to take steps to correct it,” said Rep. Gayle Mastrofrancesco, the top Republican on the legislature’s Government, Administration, and Elections Committee Committee. “The public already does not have trust in the process, and when things like this happen it makes it even worse.”

Rep. Matt Blumenthal, a Stamford Democrat who co-chairs the GAE Committee, said Monday he will look into potential reforms during the coming legislative session, calling it “vitally important that all elections data be reliable and accurate.”

“I look forward to working with the (Secretary of the State’s) office, elections officials, and my colleagues to review these issues this session and implement any reforms needed to ensure the accuracy of all elections data going forward,” Blumenthal said in an email.

After initially noticing apparent discrepancies in Connecticut’s unofficial 2024 election results, CT Insider looked through numbers from previous years, discovering at least 10 instances in certified 2016 and 2020 data when the number of reported voters did not align with the number of votes tallied.

In one example, the town of Cheshire reported 14,980 people cast ballots in the 2016 election, but results from that year show 15,421 votes, meaning the town was listed as having had 441 more votes than voters.

That year, a state legislative race in a district that includes Cheshire was decided by only 85 votes.

Registrars and town clerks interviewed said generally that sort of mistake typically owes to human error, as election workers must make manual calculations, often at the end of a long day. Discrepancies did not follow any obvious partisan pattern, occurring in both Democratic and Republican-leaning towns and cities, and CT Insider found no indication of fraud or intentional manipulation.

B. Rae Perryman, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Connecticut, said Monday she’d like the state to investigate whether errors in each case affected the results themselves or merely election statistics. She also called for additional training for local election workers and more state oversight so the task of spotting errors doesn’t fall to news reporters and other outside observers.

“The onus on this is on the state,” Perryman said. “Connecticut owes it to its voters to ensure that the arbiters of its elections can function well, have proper training and are properly staffed. And Connecticut owes it to its voters to investigate data entry errors.”

Similarly, Mastrofrancesco said she understands that mistakes happen but believes the state should have more mechanisms for catching and correcting them.

“It needs to absolutely be corrected before any results are certified,” she said. “Because it could make a difference in an election.”

Connecticut has until Wednesday to certify its 2024 results in federal elections and until Saturday to certify its results in state elections. As of Monday afternoon, unofficial results continued to show apparent errors in at least six towns.

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas, a Democrat, said last week her office was reviewing the 2024 results for major errors. She said data errors often result from over-tired election workers and that the issue could be improved with more money for staffing and training.

In their statement Monday, Sen. Rob Sampson and Sen. Stephen Harding, both Republicans, pointed to the apparent errors as an example of poor election administration, along with an early voting snafu in North Stonington, a debate about voter eligibility in Mansfield and an array of issues in Torrington.

“Connecticut voters need to have confidence that election results are accurate,” Sampson and Harding said. “The discrepancies revealed by this review do not inspire confidence.”

Election reform has been a consistent source of debate in Hartford over recent years.

This spring, Gov. Ned Lamont signed a bill mandating cameras outside ballot drop boxes and shortening the time period during which votes can request absentee ballots.

Republicans supported the measure but argued the state should go further such as by requiring signature verification and photo IDs for absentee ballots.

“Connecticut Republicans have been shouting from the rooftops about election integrity for years,” Sampson and Harding said Monday. “Our common sense ideas have repeatedly been dismissed by majority Democrats at the State Capitol.”

Asked Monday about apparent election errors, Lamont downplayed the issue, noting that Connecticut will soon implement new election software and vote tabulators.

“I am told that there are small errors that will not be consequential, will not impact the elections,” said the governor, a Democrat. “That said, we are getting the new voting machines and tabulations. We’ll be even more accurate the next time.”

https://www.ctinsider.com/election/article/election-data-errors-reform-aclu-republicans-19940790.php