The report was released following a randomly conducted series of audits in a number of cities and towns which used optical-scan machines in place of lever machines this year. The audits were performed during the final week of November on optical-scan machines used in 17 polling precincts in nine cities and towns throughout the state.
The audits involved performing a manual recount of each voting machine used in these 17 precincts to match the machine results with the separate hand count. In the majority of the precincts, the counts matched up perfectly, and in those where the results did not match, there were only minor changes reported. In each instance, the change was due to a mismarked ballot, not to machine error, Bysiewicz said.
"I want to thank the University of Connecticut's Department of Computer Sciences for helping us to design this audit and write this report," Bysiewicz said. "We have very good news to report today, because it is now clear that the optical-scan machines performed very well on Election Day and without any problems. Any changes in vote totals found in these audits were due to ballots being marked incorrectly by the voter, not to any problems with the optical scan machines. We are very pleased with these findings and look forward to introducing optical-scan technology to the entire state for the November 2007 elections."
"This success is the result of strong efforts made by our office and by town clerks and registrars of voters throughout the state to educate voters on how to use these new machines. We worked together to provide extensive training to poll workers and elections officials, ran public-service announcements on radio and television, and equipped each polling precinct with a brief DVD, narrated in English and Spanish, demonstrating to voters how the optical-scan machines are used," Bysiewicz said.
"We also made sure that the ballots used closely resembled those found in lever machines. These efforts helped to make the new machines unintimidating to voters, and made them very comfortable to use. As a result, we saw few problems. We will continue these voter education efforts next year as well."
"A big lesson from the 2006 election in that preparation pays," said Douglas Chapin, director of Electionline.org. "A key factor in whether or not jurisdictions had success or not so much success was the degree of preparation they applied to the process. The State of Connecticut moved to optical-scan voting technology from their old lever machines for the first time in 25 of their 169 towns on Election Day. Connecticut, as a result, was one of the 10 states we identified as states to watch on Election Day in our Election Preview in October. And yet, that experience ... went off largely without a hitch in Connecticut, even though they had very competitive and close elections in several races."
