It’s not 1932: The Early Voting Amendment

By Gale Alexander

It's not 1932. Honest. I checked. F.D.R. isn't president. We’re not in the middle of The Great Depression (although we could have been). Unemployment is 6.1%, not 25%. The top income tax rate is 39.6%, not 63%.

Why is 1932 important? Because in that year our state’s constitution restricted the legislature’s ability to alter how we vote, with any change requiring a constitutional amendment. Well, a lot has changed in the past 82 years and the legislature has passed an amendment that will appear on the November ballot to bring Connecticut voters into the 21st Century. 

The Connecticut Early Voting Amendment question asks, “Shall the Constitution of the State be amended to remove restrictions concerning absentee ballots and to permit a person to vote without appearing at a polling place on the day of an election?” 

If the amendment passes, Connecticut voters will be permitted to vote before election day and allowed “no-excuse” absentee ballot voting, meaning that you won't need a reason to vote by mail.

Isn't making voting easier, helping all Connecticut residents exercise their most important responsibility as members of a democracy, a good thing? Not according to the minority party in the legislature, where every member voted against the amendment, including New Milford’s own representative.

One minority representative complained that the wording of the ballot question “lacked clarity.” The wording is clear to me: The amendment will allow you to be able to vote by mail and vote before election day.

Another minority complaint was that the amendment will allow the legislature to enact “online voting.” There is nothing in the question about Internet voting – or voting by phone, text message or a 1932-era carrier pigeon. The amendment simply allows voting “without appearing at a polling place.” But that's also a GOP criticism, that the amendment will remove “the section of our constitution that requires voters to assemble.” Both the Bill of Rights and Connecticut constitution protect “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” But neither the federal nor state constitutions require voters to “assemble” to cast their votes.

Finally, there was this from Representative Laura Hoydick: “The way this has been written really doesn’t convey the significance or the ramifications of what voting to approve this actually entails” (“this” meaning the amendment question).

Since House Republican leader Larry Cafero said “we are 100 percent on board” with no-excuse absentee ballots, and Representative Hoydick herself supported narrowing the amendment question to allow only no-excuse absentee ballots, apparently only the “significance” and “ramifications” of early voting are what worry the GOP.

What “significance” or “ramifications” would worry Republican politicians?

• Could the significance of early voting in Connecticut be that it will reproduce the results of the 2012 election when, in five of the six presidential battleground states, early voters chose a Democratic candidate over a Republican by an average margin of eight percentage points? 

• Could GOP legislators be worried that early voting would make it easier for parents in Connecticut’s more than 100,000 families in which both mother and father work and the 56,000 single working parents -- of whom 83,000 are poor and disproportionately members of a minority -- to vote? The ramifications of more poor and minority voters? About 60% of voters who make less than $40,000 a year vote Democratic. Twice as many Hispanic voters and eleven times as many African-American voters consider themselves Democrats rather than Republicans.

“While some states are working to suppress voter turnout, we are working to encourage greater turnout,” said the governor about the voting amendment.

I agree. The way in which we cast our votes should not be determined by the method that most benefits -- or least hurts -- one political party. The long lines and need to extend voting hours in recent presidential elections show Americans’ hunger to be able to cast their votes. Connecticut’s constitution should allow absentee ballots and early voting to ensure that our voters’ hunger never lessens.