Markeshia Ricks Photo
Merrill testifying at the state Capitol in favor of early voting.
Like millions of Americans, Denise Merrill has been glued this week to live testimony in the presidential impeachment hearings in Congress — in her case, with an eye toward Election Day 2020.
Serving her third term as Connecticut secretary of state, Merrill took an hour-long break from monitoring the hearings Wednesday to discuss their relevance to future elections, during an appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
“I feel like we’re in a moment of constitutional crisis. We’re there. It means that this next election, perhaps our entire republic hangs in the balance,” Merrill said on the program.
“This has to be the best election we’ve ever had. Because if it isn’t, it is going to be questioned on all sides, here in Connecticut and anywhere else.”
As the state’s top elections official, Merrill has been working with her staff to iron out problems some communities — including New Haven — have at the polls. Her staff has worked with New Haven’s voting registrars, for instance, to avoid repeats of the 2018 fiasco, in which hundreds of day-of registrants waited hours to vote, if they voted at all. This year’s primary and general elections saw a vast improvement, not just with that issue, but with tabulator machines and staffing concerns. Merrill noted that 2020, when thousands of more people will vote than in 2018, will prove the “big test.”
Meanwhile, Connecticut has avoided some of the cybersecurity problems facing other states, where tabulating machines are connected by the internet to the secretary of state’s system. Some states’ systems have been hacked. After a review by University of Connecticut experts, Merrill decided to keep the state’s tabulation system offline, backed up by paper ballots. (Click here for a previous story about a visit Merrill made to Hamden to discuss efforts to help towns beef up cybersecurity.)
Looking forward, Merrill continues to push for an early voting system similar to those in 41 states, when people have more than one day on which they can cast ballots. She said that will not just make it easier for people to participate, but also help officials weed out technical and security problems.
“It’s like giving a wedding. Everything has to go off perfectly. And it rarely does,” Merrill said.
A shift to early voting requires a state constitutional amendment, which has so far proved an elusive quest.
Merrill said she’d also like to see new tabulator machines purchased to take advantage of improvements in newer models.
“Elections now are under a microscope as we never have before. There’s a long tradition in America of believing in the outcome of elections. Now everybody’s wondering who’s actually voting, who’s allowed to vote, who’s not allowed to vote,” she observed.
Click on the videos below to watch the full interview with Denise Merrill (which appears in two segments) on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.