Poll, Pandemic Propel Push For Election Reforms

The pandemic showed it worked. A new poll shows Connecticut wants it.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill cited those two arguments Thursday as she renewed a push for laws that will make it easier for people to vote in Connecticut.

She called for the legislature to approve statewide referenda on amending Connecticut’s constitution to allow all people to vote by absentee ballot without needing an excuse, or to vote early in person, in all elections.

They were allowed to vote absentee in 2020 due to one-time executive orders in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, Merrill reported, Connecticut had its highest-ever voter turnout, 79.9 percent, including a record number of absentee ballots.

It was ​“one of the most successful elections in Connecticut history despite” the most difficult circumstances in a century, said Merrill, the state’s top elections official.

She noted that Connecticut is one of only six states that require an excuse for mail-in absentee voting. It is one of only two (along with Missouri) that don’t automatically allow seniors over 65 or people working during voting hours to cast absentee ballots.

“No voter should ever be forced to choose between their health and their right to vote,” she said.

“I think it’s time for Connecticut to move from the most restrictive state in the country” to one enabling voters to vote without restrictions.

Merrill made the pitch during a Zoomed press conference. She was joined by representatives of the AARP, the League of Women Voters, and an advocacy group called Secure Democracy.

The latter group conducted a poll on the subject this month in conjunction with the Survey USA organization. It found that 70 percent of state voters support no-excuse absentee voting, according to Associate Director of State Affairs Secure Democracy Charley Olena; 79 percent backed in-person early voting. (The poll included 808 voters; it has an alleged 4.3 percent margin of error.)

Connecticut voters would need to support amending the state constitution for those changes to take effect. And first each house of the state legislature would have to vote to hold such a referendum.

Merrill has pushed the legislature to do that for years. In 2014 the ideas failed in a referendum. Merrill said she hopes the combination of the pandemic success and the new poll — which shows support across the board, among Democrats, unaffiliated voters, and Republicans (in descending order) —may change the equation. For instance: 69 percent of Republicans polled, 79 percent of unaffiliated voters, and 86 percent of registered Democrats supported early in-person voting, according to Olean.

Even as Republicans nationwide have attacked mail-in voting, 48 percent of registered Connecticut Republicans supported no-excuse mail-in voting in this latest poll. (So did 75 percent of unaffiliated voters and 89 percent of Democrats.)

The early-voting constitutional amendment passed both chambers in 2019, but without a 75 percent supermajority needed to put the referendum on the 2020 ballot. It needs a second vote this year or next, with a simple majority, to put the referendum on the 2022 ballot.

No preliminary approval has occurred yet for no-excuse mail-in absentee voting. So it would need either a 75 percent supermajority vote in both houses this year or next to put the referendum on the 2022 statewide ballot; or a simple majority in this term and in either 2023 or 2024 to make the 2024 ballot.

State Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney of New Haven later told the Independent that he’s ​“confident” the early-voting measure will win its needed second simple-majority approval this term.

“No-excuse absentee voting is more controversial,” Looney noted. He expressed confidence that that measure, too, will pass, ​“but not necessarily” with the needed supermajority.

Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly issued a statement saying his party ​“welcome[s] the dialogue” on the proposals.

“Let’s discuss concerns about the possibility of fraud, concerns about early voting, concerns about the timeliness of poll results, and concerns about changing the constitution,” Kelly stated. ​“What would the limitations on early voting actually be? Would there be any limitations at all? A key question that must be answered is: How can you guarantee that fraud cannot occur? These issues must be vetted.”

Merrill also called on the legislature Thursday to pass laws to make absentee ballot drop-off boxes permanent fixtures in the state and to allow voters to request absentee ballots electronically rather than have to download forms and then mail or deliver them to local city clerk offices. Those proposals would not need to go before a voter referendum.