The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Do-over needed in case of wrong ballots
Republican Jim Feehan would have had a 42-percent chance of tying or defeating Rep. Phil Young, D-Stratford, if the 75 people given the wrong ballots had been allowed to vote in the 120th state House district.
That’s the conclusion of Ben Fine, a mathematics and statistics professor at Fairfield University — a close watcher of politics who has testified in at least one tainted ballot case, in Bridgeport 20 years ago.
Forty-two percent is the short answer, which Fine calculated at my request. The probabilities within a 95 percent confidence-level range from a low of 32 percent to a high of a 61-percent chance Feehan would tie or win outright.
These numbers tell us this election was basically a tossup. It’s not like a 58 percent to 42 percent vote result, which is not close; it’s statistically just about a pick ‘em bet.
So what should the full House do, now that a commitee of four state Representatives charged with making a recommendation has split along party lines? The right path is clear. This is a classic do-over. Young was declared the winner by 13 votes and took his seat on Jan. 9 with the rest of the General Assembly. But the election remains tainted because some 75 people — an estimate based on that day’s events at the polls — arrived at Bunnell High School, received ballots for the 122nd House district in error, voted in the wrong election (or left that race blank) and went home.
We don’t know who they were, or this would be easy.
And yet, there’s a strong chance Feehan will never see a fair day at the polls because the House is dominated by Democrats.
Other options? Democrats, first the two on the committee during deliberations, and more recently in the House leadership, have suggested a revote at Bunnell only, no other polling places, as a “compromise.” On its face, that sounds reasonable; that’s where the error happened. Why trouble the 8,900 voters who came to the other polling places in the 120th House district?
That plan makes zero sense, however. First, as the committee Republicans, Reps. Vin Candelora of North Branford and Jason Perillo of Shelton, pointed out, it would unconstitutionally distort the election from a slice-in-time decision by voters to a composite. And it would undervalue the Bunnell precinct because fewer voters would turn out.
A Bunnell-only revote would also guarantee a win for Young, the Democrat. As it happened, Feehan won the Bunnell precinct by 251 votes, 57.3 percent to 40.5 percent over Young. To make up that margin if a special election drew half of November’s turnout — which is wildly optimistic — Feehan would have to beat Young by exactly 2to-1.
That’s an unfair burden. And while we’re thinking of burdens, the standard for a new election imposed by the two Democrats on the committee — Rep. Mike D’Agostino of Hamden and Rep. Gregg Haddad of Mansfield — was way too high.
The core of the debate is the question, what is the re-vote standard for an election whose outcome is “seriously in doubt?” And what remedy is fairest to everyone involved?
The probabilities alone should tell us the outcome of Young as the winner is seriously in doubt. Earlier this week, Feehan, thinking exactly that, re-filed a motion in his state Supreme Court case, saying he was denied due process by the committee.
The Supreme Court had ruled that the House has purview over ordering a new election, but Feehan was allowed to return with a complaint about how it was done — which he did.
‘You can’t be serious!’
Now forget the law and think about that 42 percent. If I told you you’d have a 42 percent chance of dying if you did X, you wouldn’t dare do it — unless you were flying missions in World War II, ready to give up your life for a cause.
Every kid playing ball in a schoolyard knows it. Every tinkering data fan knows it. As tennis great John McEnroe would say, “you can’t be serious!”
We don’t need Fine’s math skills to see that if Feehan gained 57.3 percent of the Bunnell vote, he had a nearly even chance of gaining 43 of those 75 votes. Bingo! That would have earned him a tie if Young snagged 30 and two didn’t vote for Young or Feehan. It’s a classic do-over.
“If there is ever a time when a new election should be ordered, this is that time,” Candelora said. “To me it was a slam-dunk based on he facts that we saw.”
It was such a slam-dunk that Candelora and Perillo didn’t think they needed to bring in a mathematician to testify.
The Demcrats see it differently. They agree that not re-voting disenfranchises 75 people. But a special election do-over would bring out just a fraction of the 10,561 voters who showed up in the 120th.
“We couldn’t disenfranchise the 10,000 people who had already voted,” D’Agostino said.
As Bill Bloss, a lawyer at Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder who represented Young put it, there’s no way out of this mess without denying some people’s rights. True, but at least the people who don’t show up for a special election have an option to vote, unlike the 75 who got the wrong ballots.
The Democrats also cited federal case law and Congressional rules that impose a higher standard for the definition of “seriously in doubt,” to include “verifiable evidence...that a different electoral result would have occurred.”
That angered Candelora. Heck, with that evidence, the House should forget a new election and award the seat the Feehan. “I’ve lost sleep over this,” Candelora said.
An onerous price
Fine’s calculations took into account that Bunnell voters favored Feehan.
His numbers show a 95 percent likelihood Feehan would have snagged between 41 and 45 of those added votes, translating to the range of 32 percent to 61 percent for a Feehan tie or win. The 42 percent overall figure is derived, he said, “using a complicated Bayesian analysis.”
“It turns out to be an interesting problem mathematically, not usually done in statistics classes,” Fine said.
He’s a self-described liberal Democrat, and his conclusion: “If you want to argue for a new election you're on pretty strong grounds.”
Here’s a final reason, as if we need one: Throughout the debate, it’s been said that a new election is a big deal, an onerous price to pay.
No, it isn’t. Election officials made an error here, handing out the wrong ballots. We will fix the system and everyone has ideas on how to do that, including Denise Merrill, Secretary of the State.
But the only way to show these election officials in Stratford that errors can have big consequences is to force a new election for the whole district, due to their mistake. It’s like a big award in a jury trial — a display of punishment to make sure the next person is more careful.
If the House allows the tainted vote to stand, the sacred will of the people will lose some of its power. That’s too high a price to pay.