Report by Paula Antolini, November 14, 2020, 3:08PM EDT
With all that is happening nationally in the tally of the election votes and fraud investigation, recounts and lawsuits, are you wondering how secure the Bethel CT polling locations and voting processes are?
We asked Bethel Registrar of Voters Tim Beeble to answer some questions that would help clarify what many voters are wondering about regarding security in local elections. See responses after each section, below.
*****
These questions are for in-person voting, absentee voting and mail-in voting, and also early voting, or day of election voting or later:
QUESTION:
1. IDENTIFICATION: What security measures were taken by the Bethel Registrar of Voters to insure that the voter is a Bethel resident, lives at the address given, and is old enough to vote, and is still living (not dead) in an election? What forms of identification are acceptable and how do you ensure that the person voting is the same person that is presenting the
ANSWER:
“Elector shall (1) present to the official checker or checkers the elector’s Social Security card or any other preprinted form of identification which shows the elector’s name and either the elector’s address, signature or photograph,” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 9-261
The Secretary of the State (SOTS) maintains a statewide Voter Registration System (CVRS) that checks voters’ identity by comparing DMV of SSI #s to the voter’s registration data. Specific questions as to the inner workings of the system should be directed to SOTS. In this system, an individual may only be registered in one town in the state. The unique identifier is their DMV # or their SSI #.
Once a voter is registered, the Registrars (ROV) mail a letter of acceptance to the new voter. the envelope is marked “Return Service”. If the voter does not live at the address, the notice is returned to the ROV by the post office, and the ROV’s remove the new voter from the Active List.
On a monthly basis, the ROV reviews Town Clerk records on deaths and compares this to the voter registration. FYI. If a voter submits an absentee ballot and dies before election day, their absentee ballot is rejected by the Town Clerk before it is counted. Throughout the year, the ROVs review property transfer records to identify voters who may have sold their Bethel homes and moved away. On an annual basis, the ROVs conduct a Canvass to identify voters who have moved away. We use the National Change of Address Database to identify those Bethel voters who moved out of state. Also as part of the Canvass, we use the SOTS national voter database (ERIC) to find Bethel voters who have registered to vote in another state. In addition as part of the Canvass, we reach out to Bethel voters who have not voted in 4 years to determine if they still live here. In this election we had an 86% Bethel voter turnout, which is an indication of our up-to-date registration list.
buy zoloft online https://buywithoutprescriptionrxonline.com/zoloft.html no prescription
*****
QUESTION:
2. SINGLE VOTE: What security measures were taken by the Bethel Registrar of Voters to ensure only one vote is placed by each voter in an election? (No duplicate votes.)
ANSWER:
On Thursday Oct 30 the ROVs printed the pollbooks for the 5 voting districts in Bethel. On Friday 10/31, the Town Clerk provided us with the nearly 4,000 absentee ballots that had been returned by voters. Using three Republican-Democrat teams, the ROVs crossed out the names from the poll books of those who already voted by absentee ballot. This task took us about 7 ½ hours. On Monday 11/2, the ROVs crossed off the names of those voters who submitted their ballot to the Town Clerk over the weekend and through Monday. If anyone who had submitted an absentee ballot then appeared at the polls to try vote in person, they would have been turned away.
If anyone who received an absentee ballot but did not submit it to the Town Clerk, came to the polls, they would have been given a ballot. If while in the polls, that voter tried to put both their polling place ballot and their Absentee Ballot into the tabulator at the same time, the 2 ballots would be rejected by the tabulator that would discern that the ballot is too thick. This did not happen on 11/3. The ROVs had warned the Tabulator Tenders to be on the look out for any voter who tries to put their polling place ballot through the tabulator and then immediately feed their Absentee Ballot into the machine. Even if the Tabulator Tender missed this attempt at voter fraud, the Tabulator was programmed to reject the Absentee Ballot as being invalid in the polling place. There were no instances of voters trying to slip their absentee ballots into our tabulators.
buy zyloprim online https://buywithoutprescriptionrxonline.com/zyloprim.html no prescription
Periodically during Election Day, as the Town Clerk (TC) received additional absentee ballots from the drop box and from the postmaster, the ROVs received from the TC a list of those absentee voters. The ROVs then went to the polling places to cross the names of these absentee voters from the poll books. If an absentee voter had already voted at the polls in person, the ROVs would have told the Town Clerk to reject the ballot. Thereafter, the ROVs would have reported the election law violation to the State Election Enforcement Commission. No Bethel voter submitted their absentee ballot to the drop box after voting in person.
In Election Day Registration (EDR) where new voters can register and vote on Election Day, if a voter registered in Bethel after having moved from another town in CT, our EDR workers immediately called the ROVs in the other town to make sure that the voter had not already voted there. If that newly registered voter had cast an 11/3 ballot in their former town, they would not have their Bethel ballot counted. There were no instances of an EDR voter having voted twice in CT.
*****
QUESTION:
3. RECORDING AND CHECKING ON VOTE: What security measures were taken by the Bethel Registrar of Voters ti ensure all mail-in or absentee votes were recorded properly? What should a voter do if their vote was not listed online or in physical record book? What should a voter do if their vote was listed online (in error) but they voted in-person?
ANSWER:
Using CVRS, the Town Clerk is responsible for issuing Absentee Ballots and receiving completed ballots from voters. In advance of the Election, the ROVs cross off the names of voters who voted by absentee as described above. On Election Day, the ROVs count the ballots. SOTS established and maintained the online lookup tool to allow voters to see the status of their absentee ballot. Voters having issues with the online AB Lookup Tool should talk to the TC or SOTS.
*****
QUESTION:
4. TABULATORS: Was there any software controlling counting the votes in the tabulators and if so what is it called? What security measures were taken by the Bethel Registrar of Voters to ensure no software was used to alter the votes in tabulators? Who is in charge of monitoring the tabulators?
ANSWER:
The State of CT uses a voting tabulator system that was purchased from LHS and given to the CT Municipalities about 15 years ago. Many other states use the same system. Each election’s ballot is programed by LHS onto memory cards and mailed to the ROVs. The system does not have wireless capability, and the ports are never connected to the internet. The ports are sealed and are locked behind a panel on the ballot box on election day. The ROVs never use the ports. Ten days before each election, the ROVs test the tabulators and the memory cards to make sure that they read the ballots correctly. The public is always invited to observe the testing. After the testing has concluded, the memory cards are sealed in the tabulators which are then sealed in their carrying cases, and then locked in a steel cabinet which is locked in a room. The seal numbers are all recorded in the pre-testing documents and later checked by the moderators when the ROVs deliver the election equipment to the polling place.
*****
QUESTION:
5. PERCENT OF VOTERS: What percentage of Bethel voters voted in the November 3, 2020 election? How are the numbers of voters different ion Bethel in a presidential election vs,. A regular election (not a presidential year) percentage-wise?
ANSWER:
Bethel had an 85½% voter turnout for 2020. In 2016 we had an 80% turnout. At that time, we had 10,000 ballots cast. In 2020, we had 11,263 ballots cast. In the 2019 Municipal election we had a 39% turnout. It’s confounding that, voters don’t realize that their local leaders have a greater direct impact on their quality of life than any President.
*****
QUESTION:
6. VOTE COUNT: When were votes counted for the November 3, 2020 election … on November 3rd? Or before Nov. 3rd? Or after Nov. 3rd? And what dates? What was the closing date of counting votes?
ANSWER:
All Bethel ballots were counted on November 3rd. No tabulator report was run prior to 8:00 PM. By 10:00 PM the ROVs had the tabulator tapes and Moderator Returns from the 3 polling places plus the Absentee & EDR Tabulator. On 11/3 at 11:30 pm, the Head Moderator and ROVs submitted the results to SOTS on the Election Management System (EMS) from the polling place Tabulator tapes as well as the Summary Totals from the Absentee/EDR Tabulator. Thereafter on 11/4, the Head Moderator and ROVs entered into EMS the detailed breakdown of the Absentee votes by voting district. On 11/5, we entered the other required election statistics into EMS.
*****
QUESTION:
7. MISSING BALLOTS: Were any missing ballots discovered at any point during the election process? Were there any large batches of votes added all at once at any time, particularly all for one candidate?
ANSWER:
There were no missing ballot discoveries. At the polling places, all ballots go into the ballot box that the tabulator sits on. The TC turns over Absentee Ballots the ROVs who then, provide them to the Absentee Ballot Moderator. At the end of the night, the ballots at the polling place and the absentee ballots are sealed in bins and then locked in a steel cabinet inside a locked room. The Presidential Election ballots are retained in their sealed container for 22 months before recycling.
*****
QUESTION:
8. Can you describe the process by which a vote is cast, then tallied, from the time a person fills out a ballot to the time it is counted and recorded? (For all three processes, in-person, absentee, and mail-in).
ANSWER:
The State of CT does not have Mail-in Voting or Early Voting. We only have Absentee Voting, Election Day Registration and In-person voting on election day.
For In-Person Voting, the voter marks their ballot in a privacy booth and then personally inserts the ballot into the tabulator which reads the filled-in ovals and records the votes indicated by the voter on the ballots. At the close of the polls, the moderator runs an Ender Card through the Tabulator that triggers the tabulator to print the election results.
Absentee Ballots become available 30 days before the Election. The voter completes their ballot and follows the instructions for sealing it in the inner envelope which they sign and seal in the outer envelope. It is up to the voter to get the ballot to the Town Clerk. They can drive around with it in their car of a couple weeks before mailing it or dropping it into the Drop Box. You can consult with the TC about her process for receiving and safekeeping the completed ballots. Described above is how the ROVs handle the envelopes containing the Absentee Ballots while we cross off the names of Absentee voters from the poll books.
Absentee Ballots are counted according to the procedure described in this SOTS manual: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/SOTS/ElectionServices/Handbooks/2013ABCountersManualpdf.pd
Similarly to the way Absentee Ballots are processed, the Registrars transfer to the Absentee Ballot Moderator the EDR envelopes containing the ballot that each EDR new voters completed. The AB teams prepare the EDR Ballots for processing through a tabulator.
*****
QUESTION:
9. Have you receive any challenges to the outcome of the votes in Bethel after the results of the votes were announced?
The State of CT requires an automatic recount if the winning margin is less than 0.5% for the respective district for that office. That would be a statewide vote for President and Congress. or the multi town votes for State Senate of State Representative. No race on the Bethel Ballot met that threshold.
*****
QUESTION:
10. Did anything go wrong on this last election, regarding anything in the election process? If so, how was it remedied? Or was it not? Would you do anything differently in the next election regarding the election process and recording votes etc.?
ANSWER:
We are always making improvements to the election process. This year, we used the entire gym at the Municipal Center for Districts 1 & 4. Accommodating social distancing in the polling place was a challenge that we met. Voters started lining up at our polling places at 5:30 AM. The line was long when the polls opened at 6:00 AM. One voter reported that he arrived at the Municipal Center at 6:05 AM and was completed with voting at 7:15 AM. We timed a voter who arrived at 7:15 AM and she completed her voting in 25 minutes. We found that at the Municipal Center and at Berry School, that the line of sight from the Moderator’s Table to the Checkers was often blocked by the voter lines. We are talking about alternative means of having the Moderators and Checkers communicate, whether it be by walkie talkie or a service light like you would see at grocery cashier lines.
###