Needed For American Elections: Trust

Connecticut’s top election official says the biggest repercussion from Russian hacking is the distrust it has created in the public’s perception of the election system.

“Educating the public is critically needed right now, about what’s going on with the voting system,” said Secretary of State Denise Merrill (pictured above). She was the keynote speaker during a forum Saturday sponsored by both the League of Women Voters of the East Shore, and Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible. The event was televised by Branford’s BCTV. 

“We want to maintain the trust of the public in elections — that is the most critical point. The saddest fallout of all this, is that the Russians have now created distrust in the American public in their elections,” Merrill told the crowd of about 60 gathered at Fire Headquarters in Branford.

In the fall of 2017, a year after the presidential election, Merrill was informed that Connecticut was one of 21 states that had been ​“scanned” by the Russians. She said ​“scanning” is different than actually hacking a system.

“Basically I’d liken it to rattling the door and knocking on the window, trying to get in,” she said.

“We were told by the intelligence agencies nationally, who track this sort of thing, that we had been scanned but they didn’t get in. As far as we know, nothing happened, but that’s not to say it can’t happen next time. This is our concern,” Merrill said.

“While there’s a threat, there are really lots of ways we mitigate that threat already,” she said.

And new funding has become available. On Friday, Merrill and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal announced that Connecticut was awarded $5.1 million in federal funds to bolster election security and strengthen systems against cyber-attacks.

An Awakening

“Honestly, the biggest problem (nationwide) in elections today is that not enough people are voting,” Merrill said, adding that the country has ​“one of the most scandalously low rates of voting in the developed world.”

She said people feel disenfranchised and that their vote doesn’t count.

“Hopefully that may change, because now it feels like the electorate is awakening to some of the things that happen when you do not elect the leaders that you would wish for.”

She said Connecticut’s voting numbers are higher than national rates. In the 2016 presidential election, 76 percent of registered voters in Connecticut voted, compared to about 58 percent nationwide. There are more than 2.1 million registered voters in Connecticut

“I start from the premise that we are all better if everyone is participating. Democracy thrives when everyone is at the table,” she said. ​“Everyone who’s 18 and a citizen should be voting and expressing their opinions and their voices.”

She said it’s important to encourage voter registration, especially for young people and immigrants.

Merrill said Latinos have the lowest percentage of voters in the state, with an estimated 50 percent registered to vote. However, she said only about 23 percent actually vote.

Proposed Voting Changes

This year Merrill has introduced House Bill 5173, which deals with voter privacy. One proposal of the legislation is to remove a voter’s full date of birth from electronic registration files and simply use the year of birth.

She is also supporting an initiative to provide early voting in Connecticut, which would require an amendment to the state constitution. She said her proposal would provide three to five days of early voting in the two week period before an election. Early voting is currently available in 38 states.

Old-Fashioned Voting

Merrill said Connecticut’s ​“old-fashioned” paper ballots help make voting more secure. She said the only voting information online in the state are the voter registration lists.

“We have paper ballots. You vote on paper, you stick it in the machine and it records your vote, and we keep the paper and do an audit afterwards to make sure it all matches up,” she said.

Merrill said she would like to see additional auditing of election results as another safeguard.

She said the state previously considered an electronic check-in system at polling places, but decided that the pen and paper system was less vulnerable.

Merrill said Connecticut’s election procedures were once ranked 19th by the Pew Foundation, but that rank has increased to 5th place nationwide.

Getting Involved

“It’s a very stressful time in American history, and I say that as someone who’s been involved in public life since Vietnam, which was the inspiration for my generation to get involved,” Merrill said. ​“The good news is I think we’re seeing another wave of that out there, and that is incredibly hopeful.”

Merrill said historically there have been issues of who can vote and where and how people can vote, but now there are concerns about foreign countries manipulating voting.

She said people have been targeted as to whether they can legally vote and there are efforts in some areas of the country to purge or restrict voter lists.

“I’m not going to let that happen on my watch,” Merrill said, adding that she has fought efforts to make the state’s laws more restrictive.

“We do enforce rigorous laws that are very effective but also flexible to allow everyone to vote. We are not trying to stop people from voting. We’re trying to get more people voting,” she said.

Merrill previously served on the state board of the League of Women Voters, and was a state representative for 17 years in the 54th District which includes Mansfield and Chaplin.

“Most of the good ideas I ever got were from my constituents,” Merrill said. ​“But it’s really a lot more about listening to people.”

Citizens’ Election Program

The second speaker at the forum was Elona Vaisnys (pictured), who oversees ​“CEProud,” a League of Women Voters project to educate the public about the importance of the Citizen’s Election Program (CEP).

The voluntary program, which was approved by the legislature and signed into law in 2005, provides public funding for candidates seeking any state office.

“You can get public money to run your election campaign,” Vaisnys said Saturday. Grants are available if a candidate qualifies by raising a certain amount of money. However, she said most people don’t know about CEP or how it works.

For example, she said a prospective candidate for the state House of Representatives has to raise $5,000 from constituents, ranging in amounts from $5 to $250 contributions before they receive public funding. To run for governor, a candidate must raise $250,000 in not more than $100 amounts.

“The money has to be from individuals, it can’t be from a business or corporation,” she said.

There is also a range for the amount of grant money than can be received, ranging from $20,000 to run for the House of Representatives, to $6 million to run for governor.

“The money doesn’t come from our taxes,” Vaisnys said. Instead it comes from the sale of unclaimed property, such as inactive stocks and bonds, uncashed checks, unclaimed utility deposits or inactive checking and savings accounts. She said there is currently more than $746 million in abandoned property in Connecticut.

“The CEP levels the playing field,” Vaisnys said, allowing anyone a chance to run for office, not just people who are wealthy or have rich friends.

Once they have raised the qualifying amount, candidates must sign a contract that they won’t use any money for their campaign other than the public funding. And every penny must be accounted for.

“The accountability is very strict,” she said, and falls under the watchful eye of the State Election Enforcement Committee (SEEC).

However, Vaisnys said there have been attempts to end the CEP program in the past three years. The League of Women Voters is reaching out to people to voice their support for the program so it isn’t eliminated.

“Be part of the brigade … become part of the awareness-raising,” she said as she asked people to talk to family and friends about CEP.

Vaisnys also asked people to sign a one-sentence statement showing support for CEP to help fight off attempts to end the program. Information is available by searching CEProud League of Women Voters.

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