Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding (Brookfield) and Rob Sampson (Wolcott), ranking member of the Government Administration and Elections Committee, released a statement yesterday evening in response to recent comments made by Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas regarding early voting.
“For many months, Connecticut Republicans raised repeated concerns over the burden that many days of early voting would place on town budgets statewide,” read the statement. “Simply put, it’s a waste of taxpayer money which puts unnecessary heavy burdens on our hard working local election officials. The voting data we received from the Secretary of the State’s office today is evidence of that.”
Data released by Thomas’ office on Tuesday shows that only 8,854 voters have utilized early voting for this year’s party primary elections. Early voting was open from Aug. 5 to Aug. 11, giving early voters seven days to cast their ballots before the Tuesday election. This number represents less than 1% of the state’s registered Democrat and Republican voters.
The state’s first trial run for early voting, held during this year’s spring presidential primary, was markedly more successful, tallying 18,062 votes in total. While that may bode well for early voting turnout in November, both Republicans and Thomas believe that changes to the process might be warranted already.
Thomas was quoted by Connecticut Public Radio as having said, “We may have too many days of early voting.” She noted that legislators often learn lessons only after legislation is passed, and that “In November, we’ll learn more things that we can bring to the next legislative session.”
Connecticut was one of the last states to allow for early voting after the passage of a bill in 2023. Thomas was one of many state officials who testified before the bill’s passage, requesting that additional funding be allocated to help smooth towns’ implementation of early voting.
“I again would like to reiterate my request that you provide adequate funding for municipalities to implement the program seamlessly,” read Thomas’ testimony. “It is imperative that any program be fully funded by the state to cover the costs of staff time, training materials, ballots and envelopes, chain of custody storage equipment, municipal technological upgrades, and any other incurred expenses.”
In February, Thomas requested $5 million be allocated from the General Fund for municipal implementation of early voting, as well as another $2.5 million for public education campaigns that would, in part, focus on making state voters aware of early voting implementation. This request fell on deaf ears, and Connecticut municipalities were only eligible to receive up to $10,500 in state grants for the purpose of early voting.
Republican Minority Leader Vince Candelora (North Branford) testified in opposition to the bill, saying it would place “too high a burden” on local election officials, and requested that early voting periods only consist of three days in total, two weekdays and one day on the weekends. If changes are to be made to the length of the state’s early voting period, it will have to wait until next year’s legislative session.
“Republicans warned that this would pose a significant unfunded mandate on towns which would be passed on to residents in the form of higher taxes,” concluded Sampson and Harding’s statement. “Now that the state’s top Democrat elections official has expressed these views, we as lawmakers must fix this state law.”
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More of our precious taxpayer dollars being wasted. The early voting polling places were empty except for the poll workers. The Connecticut legislature truly lacks any common sense when it passed this legislation and then declined to fund it sufficiently.