CT vote in national election at risk

In yesterday's New Britain Herald, Rick Guiness reported on a major problem with the state's new Centralized Voter Registration System.

It seems like important news, and kudos to Guiness for reporting it, but why isn't anyone else concerned?

On February 15th, 2007 in testimony before the state legislature's budget appropriations committee, Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz was bragging about the creation of the Centralized Voter Registration System:

The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) also mandated that each state have a central voter registration system in place by 2004. Connecticut was a national leader in establishing a voter registration system that protects the rights of voters and also guards against potential voter fraud. This new statewide system, known as Centralized Voter Registration (CVR), was established to protect the sanctity of every vote and to assure citizens that the precious right to vote is not compromised by fraud. I led the way in developing our CVR in 2003, in compliance with Connecticut 2003 state law and a year ahead of the HAVA deadline. Again, I must commend the local election officials and municipal leaders for their assistance in meeting this federal mandate.

A year later Bysiewicz has sent a somewhat panicked letter to the governor to solicit funds to fix the system after several crashes in the days before the recent primary:

The problem, Bysiewicz says in the two-page letter, was that the Centralized Voter Registration System “crashed several times on the day before the primary, and has not yet been completely restored.”

Bysiewicz says her staff has worked with the state Department of Information Technology on the problem “and although numerous explanations were given and several ‘fixes’ attempted, we do not believe that issues have been addressed in a way that would reassure registrars that they will have what they need in November.”

The system is manufactured by ElectioNet (one of those annoying, mid-word capitalized letter product names), which claims:

With the Election Reform Bill being passed, you need a high-performance voter registration system designed to provide data in real-time and comprehensive support for your election processes. You want the flexibility of a modular, integrated system. The solution you choose must meet these standards. The solution that satisfies these requirements is ElectioNet's™ Centralized Voter Registration System. It is the leading solution for voter registration and election management...

...and,

Connecticut replaced their legacy system with ElectioNet™ and became the first installed site for our product to support their two million registered voters in 169 towns for 600+ concurrent users and 718 polling places.

Unfortunately, it crashed. Am I the only one, besides the Secretary of State, who's a little nervous about the reliability of our state's electronic voting and registration systems?

Unfair competition is nothing new

Michael Arafeh, owner of Coffeehouse Recording studios in Middletown has had his share of hardships thanks to Middletown public policy. The building of new condominiums on Ferry Street, with use of heavy equipment, meant that many of Arafeh's sessions were interrupted. I was at a meeting of the Common Council when Arafeh plead for some help, and left with little to show.

Now the city is behind Arafeh as he complains that the Green Street Arts Center is unfairly competing with him.

I sympathize with him, but offer the unsettling news that the State of Connecticut has been in the same "unfair competition" business for years. At public universities like Central Connecticut, Southern Connecticut, and Middlesex Community College, instructors are "selling" their audio and video production services to the general public. These universities, which are funded by tax dollars, have none of the overhead costs of a audio of video production company (rent, salary, equipment), and are able to bid for work at a much lower cost. I own a film production company and have complained for years about the situation, and have always heard the excuse that the commercial work helps students experience real production situations. Such production also takes place at private universities like Quinnipiac, but since they are not supported by tax dollars, there is less of a reason for complaint.

To me, this situation says a few things. Students are being used as free (slave) labor on productions for which someone is charging and making a profit. Also, if instructors have the time to complete commercial projects, they are either using state time, or state equipment which should be used for instruction. Finally, it raises the question that state employees may be double-dipping, that is, collecting personal fees for production while they are collecting a university salary.

It seems to me that any entity which receives public subsidy should not be able to bid against a private concern.