PRINT JOURNALISM: BECAUSE IT STILL MATTERS. FEBRUARY 17, 2020 VOL. 56, No. 7
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Connecticut relies on paper ballots.
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‘A LONG WAY TO GO’
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POT PLAN
Iowa caucus disaster ‘not going to happen’ in Connecticut BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
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f you ask Connecticut’s Secretary of the State Denise Merrill if the state is in danger of repeating the infamous Iowa caucus debacle when tallying its primary and general election results this year, you will get a hearty laugh. “That’s not going to hap-
pen here,” she said. The reason, Merrill said, is simple: Connecticut’s voting process relies on paper ballots “that undergo a rigorous post-election audit and (is) run by election professionals at the state and local level. Although it may take a little longer to report results, Connecticut’s reliance on paper is our best defense against threats to our cybersecurity.”
TOLL TURMOIL CONTINUES AFTER LAMONT’S SPEECH
The Feb. 3 Iowa Democratic caucus, whose victor, Pete Buttigieg, wasn’t finalized until Feb. 9, was marred by the use of a vote tabulation app called Shadow, whose enormous technical errors contributed significantly to a three-day delay in reporting results. The Shadow app was distributed through mobile app testing platform TestFairy, instead of official app stores on Android and iOS, which boast higher security and performance requirements. The poor performance has already caused other states that had contracted Shadow to tally their results, like Nevada, to cancel those plans, and has resulted in » IOWA
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BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
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eactions to Gov. Ned Lamont’s State of the State address, and the nearly concurrent release of his budget proposal, were mixed. While most observers agreed with the governor’s “cheerleader in chief” remarks — “No more bad-mouthing the great state of Connecticut” — he declared there was some divisiveness about the substance of what he is proposing. “It was very positive that the governor focused a lot on economic development and job creation,” said Joe Brennan, president and CEO
of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA). “The economy has been showing better signs for the last three quarters, and while job growth is still lagging, it looks like we’re starting to turn the corner.” But Brennan was less upbeat about Lamont’s proposal to raise revenue, in part, by eliminating $28 million in previously approved tax relief for Connecticut businesses, and maintaining the 10% surcharge that had been set to expire in tax year 2021, saying that the switch, which “we had not anticipated,” could be a net negative. Fairfield’s Republican First Selectwoman and former state Rep. Brenda » TOLL
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