No-excuse absentee voting in CT? Even the fine print is divisive

Connecticut voters will be asked in November whether the Connecticut Constitution should be amended to allow no-excuse absentee voting, a concept that, as lawmakers demonstrated Thursday, remains a wedge issue in the General Assembly.

The wording of the referendum question was set long ago in a resolution passed by the Democratic-controlled House and Senate: “Shall the Constitution of the State be amended to permit the General Assembly to allow each voter to vote by absentee ballot?”

At issue Thursday was whether a legislative committee would sign off on a two-paragraph, 100-word explanation drafted by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Research indicating what passage of the amendment would mean.

The explanation — which could be accepted or rejected, but not amended by the committee — was endorsed on a party-line vote by the Government Administration and Elections Committee, supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans. The language is intended to be available to voters at polling places but will not be on the ballot.

It reads:

“Under the current state constitution, qualified voters may cast an absentee vote only if they are unable to vote in person at their polling place on election day due to (1) absence from their city or town, (2) sickness or physical disability, or (3) their religious beliefs prohibiting secular activity on that day.”

“If this amendment is approved, the state constitution would no longer limit the reasons why absentee voting may be used. Therefore, it would expand the state legislature’s authority to pass laws regarding voting by qualified voters who will not appear at their polling place on election day.”

Clear? Not enough for Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco and Sen. Rob Sampson, both of Wolcott, the ranking Republicans on the committee.

“It doesn’t specify anything in there about no-excuse absentee voting,” she said.

Sampson said the Democrats were “pulling the wool over the eyes of voters about what’s actually happening.”

While Sampson took issue with the explanatory language, he also questioned whether it would make a difference. “I think no matter what we put for the explanatory text, It’s not likely to impact a great many decisions, and that’s tremendously unfortunate,” he said.

Currently, the state constitution restricts the circumstances for voting absentee — making Connecticut a rarity among the states. The proposed amendment would give the General Assembly the option of determining when and how absentee ballots could be used.

The constitution now limits the General Assembly to allowing absentee voting only by those “unable to appear at the polling place on the day of election because of absence from the city or town of which they are inhabitants or because of sickness, or physical disability or … the tenets of their religion.”

Until revisions passed in 2022, the state law regarding absentee voting actually was more restrictive than the constitution, defining sickness as a voter’s illness and requiring commuters to be out of town for all hours of balloting, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Technically, that meant a commuter was ineligible to vote by absentee if they left their city or town on a 6:01 a.m. train and didn’t return by 8 p.m. Or that a caregiver for an ill person could not vote by absentee.

The absentee-voting amendment would allow the General Assembly, if it chooses, to allow any registered voter to obtain an absentee ballot and vote by mail.

If passed, it would be the second time in two election cycles that voters approved constitutional changes liberalizing ballot access in Connecticut. An amendment approved in 2022 allowed the General Assembly to pass a law authorizing early voting, effective this year with the presidential primary.

The new era of ballot access began at 10 a.m. on March 26, the first minute of early voting in Connecticut , one of the last four states that had resisted the trend toward in-person voting ahead of Election Day.

There are four days of early voting for the presidential primary and special elections, seven for other primaries and 14 for general elections. The early voting generally will end on the Sunday before the election.

Republicans have complained the number of days of in-person early voting is a burden to the cities and towns not justified by relatively few voters who voted early in this month’s primaries . A better test will come with the presidential election in November.

Voting by mail, or other forms of absentee voting, became a partisan issue during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, who insisted without evidence that such voting is rife with fraud.

Trump changed his tune this year, when he urged his supporters to use any legal means of voting. A recording of him delivering that message was played to delegates at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.