Criticism, conflict and courts: CT updates voting rules

By Gian­ni Sal­is­bury | UConn Jour­nal­ism
Sep­tem­ber 13, 2024

With the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion approach­ing on Nov. 5, state offi­cials have been work­ing to try to ensure vot­ing in Con­necti­cut will run as smooth­ly as pos­si­ble by adopt­ing new laws, pro­vid­ing vot­ers with dif­fer­ent ways to cast a bal­lot and using secure elec­tion prac­tices. 

This comes against the back­drop of elec­tion irreg­u­lar­i­ties in Bridge­port, which has faced scan­dals involv­ing vot­er fraud in city elec­tions. The most recent involved Wan­da Geter-Pataky, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic town offi­cial who was crim­i­nal­ly charged along with three oth­ers after sur­veil­lance footage alleged­ly showed her stuff­ing a bal­lot box with absen­tee bal­lots in 2019.

The scan­dal gar­nered wide­spread atten­tion from both sides of the aisle.

Also pro­vid­ing con­text for the updates is crit­i­cism from the ACLU, which recent­ly iden­ti­fied Con­necti­cut as one of the states that was fail­ing to effec­tive­ly counter its long his­to­ry of racist vot­er sup­pres­sion.  

Since then, Con­necti­cut offi­cials have moved to cre­ate new vot­ing laws and edu­cate the pub­lic on dif­fer­ent options for cast­ing a bal­lot. 

Sec­re­tary of the State Stephanie Thomas has led this push by help­ing imple­ment many elec­tion reform laws. One such pol­i­cy is ear­ly vot­ing.

Ear­ly vot­ing

Start­ing Oct. 21, for the first time in a gen­er­al elec­tion, Con­necti­cut vot­ers can vis­it ear­ly vot­ing loca­tions to cast their vote up to 14 days before Elec­tion Day. Every town in the state is required to have a loca­tion. Vot­ers must check in, and receive a bal­lot and enve­lope. Vot­ers fill out the bal­lot in a pri­va­cy booth then seal it in the approved enve­lope. Accord­ing to the state web­site, the sealed enve­lope will be placed in a “secure recep­ta­cle as instruct­ed by the elec­tion offi­cials.”

To ensure peo­ple can’t vote twice, elec­tion offi­cials at these loca­tions will record the names of each per­son cast­ing a bal­lot. This pre­vents any­one from vot­ing ear­ly at oth­er loca­tions, sub­mit­ting an absen­tee bal­lot or vot­ing on Elec­tion Day, accord­ing to the sec­re­tary of the state’s web­site. The envelopes con­tain­ing the bal­lots remain sealed and unopened until Elec­tion Day.

Many state offi­cials have expressed their sup­port of ear­ly vot­ing, say­ing it allows peo­ple more chances to vote if they can’t make it to the polls on Elec­tion Day. And it has bipar­ti­san sup­port. 

State Repub­li­can Chair­man Ben­jamin Pro­to encour­ages peo­ple to use ear­ly vot­ing. 

“It’s easy. The loca­tions, you can find on the sec­re­tary of the state’s web­site or your own registrar’s web­sites. It’s quick, it’s easy. You get it done and it’s all over,” Pro­to said.

State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair­woman Nan­cy DiNar­do agrees that ear­ly vot­ing makes it eas­i­er for vot­ers to get to the polls.

“Ear­ly vot­ing is a good thing because there could be peo­ple who are away, peo­ple could be in the hos­pi­tal, and hav­ing the abil­i­ty and the choice to be able to vote ear­ly and not just on that day is a good thing,” DiNar­do said.

Absen­tee vot­ing

Absen­tee vot­ing is also a major focus going into the upcom­ing elec­tion. Absen­tee bal­lots will be issued start­ing Oct. 4, 31 days before the gen­er­al elec­tion.

And a ref­er­en­dum ques­tion about absen­tee vot­ing will appear on bal­lots this year. 

Con­necti­cut vot­ers will decide whether the state con­sti­tu­tion should be amend­ed to allow no-excuse absen­tee bal­lots. A “yes” vote would mean that vot­ers will no longer have to fall under cer­tain cat­e­gories to qual­i­fy for absen­tee vot­ing. 

Cur­rent law allows vot­ers to apply for absen­tee bal­lots only if they will be out of town on Elec­tion Day or can’t vote in per­son because of sick­ness or dis­abil­i­ty, mil­i­tary ser­vice or cer­tain reli­gious tenets. Those work­ing dur­ing vot­ing hours at a polling place oth­er than their own also qual­i­fy.

Options for old­er vot­ers are now more wide­ly avail­able as well. Accord­ing to the AARP, an Act passed this year allows Con­necti­cut nurs­ing-home res­i­dents who apply for an absen­tee bal­lot with­in six days before Elec­tion Day to des­ig­nate some­one to deliv­er the bal­lot to them. 

Anoth­er way peo­ple who can’t make it to the polls can vote is through super­vised absen­tee vot­ing.

Peg­gy Reeves, a for­mer state law­mak­er and for­mer state elec­tions direc­tor, explains in a video cre­at­ed by the sec­re­tary of the state’s office that reg­is­trars of vot­ers in each town must con­duct super­vised absen­tee vot­ing in insti­tu­tions with 20 or more reg­is­tered vot­ers. This could include nurs­ing homes, assist­ed liv­ing, vet­er­ans’ health care facil­i­ties, men­tal health facil­i­ties and more.  Under the super­vised absen­tee vot­ing process, reg­is­trars from both major par­ties or their designees deliv­er the bal­lots and super­vise vot­ing, accord­ing to Reeves.

Giselle Feli­ciano, Hart­ford Demo­c­ra­t­ic reg­is­trar, explains that this is a com­mon prac­tice in the city.

“Our office here goes to these facil­i­ties, helps them fill out the appli­ca­tion for the absen­tee bal­lot to be deliv­ered to them, and then we will, in return, go back to them with the bal­lot, enter their facil­i­ty almost like a polling loca­tion,” Feli­ciano said.

How one obtains and sub­mits an absen­tee bal­lot is very spe­cif­ic, accord­ing to Pat­ty Spru­ance, the Wind­ham town clerk and pres­i­dent of Con­necti­cut Town Clerks Asso­ci­a­tion. 

The how-tos of absen­tee vot­ing

In a video cre­at­ed by the sec­re­tary of the state’s office, Spru­ance explains that vot­ers first must apply for an absen­tee bal­lot. Appli­ca­tions are avail­able by email­ing the sec­re­tary of state’s office, call­ing the town clerk and pick­ing it up in per­son or receiv­ing it by mail, or access­ing the Con­necti­cut Online Absen­tee Bal­lot Request Por­tal. 

Vot­ers must fill out the appli­ca­tion, includ­ing their rea­son for need­ing an absen­tee bal­lot. Vot­ers can return the appli­ca­tion through the mail, drop it off in a bal­lot box or bring it to the town clerk’s office.

Vot­ers will receive two envelopes with their absen­tee bal­lot to ensure the safe­ty of their vote, accord­ing to Spru­ance. Once they’ve filled out the bal­lot, vot­ers put the bal­lot in “enve­lope B” and seal, sign and date the enve­lope. That enve­lope goes into an out­er enve­lope with the town address on it. Vot­ers then can mail their bal­lot to the town clerk’s office or place it in a bal­lot box. An imme­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­ber or designee des­ig­nat­ed by the vot­er also can return the bal­lot, but the per­son return­ing it must sign the out­er enve­lope and present ID when return­ing it. This allows for a paper trail that helps keep the elec­tion secure, accord­ing to Spru­ance.

Absen­tee bal­lots are stored along with ear­ly vot­ing bal­lots until Elec­tion Day to be opened and count­ed. How­ev­er, vot­ers can vote in per­son even if they have already sub­mit­ted an absen­tee bal­lot. If this occurs, town clerks must destroy that voter’s absen­tee bal­lot and use their in-per­son vote instead, Sec­re­tary of State Thomas said in a video on the office’s web­site.

Bal­lot secu­ri­ty

Elec­tion Day takes place Nov. 5 and will include in-per­son vot­ing, curb­side vot­ing for those who need it, and same-day reg­is­tra­tion.

The state is also imple­ment­ing a pilot pro­gram to update its vot­ing tab­u­la­tors, which were last changed in 2006. Nine com­mu­ni­ties will test out new machines this year before a planned statewide roll­out next year.

Connecticut’s vot­ing sys­tem is based on paper bal­lots. Vot­ers feed their bal­lots into a read­er and a tab­u­la­tor scans the results. Results are avail­able on a mem­o­ry card while the paper bal­lots are secured in the machine. The machine is locked and only elec­tion mod­er­a­tors are giv­en the keys.

Pro­to, the Repub­li­can state chair­man, said it’s a good sys­tem. “Ours is com­plete­ly paper. We are not con­nect­ed to the inter­net. Machines have no modems in them, so they are not hack­able. The machine reads the col­ored box­es, just like the SATs. I think it’s a very trans­par­ent sys­tem,” he said.

Absen­tee and ear­ly vot­ing bal­lots are sealed in the town clerk’s office until Elec­tion Day, when they are tak­en to a cen­tral count office, opened and count­ed, the Hart­ford reg­is­trar said.  

“On Elec­tion Day I have a head mod­er­a­tor that goes out and col­lects the sealed bal­lots and then goes upstairs with sev­er­al of what we call coun­ters, and they sit there and open and make sure every­thing is cor­rect,” Feli­ciano added.

Accord­ing to the Nation­al Con­fer­ence of State Leg­is­la­tures, for an absen­tee bal­lot to count “the inner enve­lope of an absen­tee bal­lot must be signed by the vot­er under penal­ties of false state­ment. If the state­ment on the inner enve­lope is not signed as required, the bal­lot is reject­ed.”

Once vot­ing ends, each town’s reg­is­trar of vot­ers or town clerk has until around mid­night to report the totals to the sec­re­tary of the state, accord­ing to Feli­ciano. In Hart­ford, she is in charge of record­ing these num­bers as a reg­is­trar. In oth­er towns, the town clerk may get this job. They usu­al­ly have every­thing set to begin enter­ing vot­ing infor­ma­tion between 9:30 and 10 p.m. 

Feli­ciano said she and the head mod­er­a­tors take the num­bers that each tab­u­la­tor spits out from each polling loca­tion and enter the infor­ma­tion into the state’s Elec­tion Man­age­ment Sys­tem (EMS). The num­bers must be entered for each polling sta­tion, so the time need­ed to reg­is­ter the results depends on the num­ber of sta­tions in the munic­i­pal­i­ty. 

“We have to enter a num­ber for every can­di­date in every polling loca­tion. If you have 20 can­di­dates in polling loca­tion 1 we have to enter all 20 num­bers, and we have to repeat the process for every polling loca­tion. It is a very tedious process,” Feli­ciano said. 

Feli­ciano and her mod­er­a­tors enter as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble before the mid­night dead­line. Some­times they go past the dead­line, and occa­sion­al­ly the sec­re­tary of the state will give lee­way for a lit­tle more time to put in the infor­ma­tion. 

She and the mod­er­a­tors will return the next day and “review every­thing again” to make sure the infor­ma­tion is com­plete and cor­rect, Feli­ciano said. 

At the end of Elec­tion Night, Feli­ciano emails the sec­re­tary of the state a noti­fi­ca­tion that the city has sub­mit­ted to the EMS. She also will also email the town clerk so town offi­cials will have the unof­fi­cial count. The count will remain unof­fi­cial until the sec­re­tary of the state’s office cer­ti­fies the num­bers. 

State offi­cials’ goal this year was to make vot­ing more secure. Through imple­ment­ing ear­ly vot­ing and oppor­tu­ni­ties for secure absen­tee vot­ing, DiNar­do believes that the sec­re­tary of state has done just that. 

“The rea­son why those things were put in place was to make sure that the vot­ing is done prop­er­ly, and there’s no issues around it,” the Demo­c­ra­t­ic state chair­woman said. “… The sec­re­tary of the state’s office want­ed to imple­ment these changes to make sure that every vote is an hon­est vote, and every vote is count­ed.” 

DiNar­do added: “Any changes that are made, I think, are always for the good.”

Pro­to said Connecticut’s elec­tion process is one of the most secure and effec­tive in the coun­try and encour­ages peo­ple to go out and vote.

“Vote for the can­di­date of your choice. If you want to change things that are hap­pen­ing in this coun­try, in our state, then you need to exer­cise the utmost fun­da­men­tal right,” he said.

Feli­ciano also hopes for a big turnout. 

“We are prepar­ing for long lines. We are prepar­ing for folks not to be reg­is­tered. Our reg­istry has grown,” she said. 

Accord­ing to online reg­is­tra­tion, Hart­ford has gained 2,000 new reg­is­tered vot­ers, bring­ing the cap­i­tal city to 64,230 reg­is­tered vot­ers as of Sept. 3.

This arti­cle is part of U.S. Democ­ra­cy Day, a nation­wide col­lab­o­ra­tive on Sept. 15, the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Democ­ra­cy, in which news orga­ni­za­tions cov­er how democ­ra­cy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, vis­it usdemocracyday.org.