Connecticut pushes ‘no excuses’ absentee ballot voting

Seeking to follow 35 states, Connecticut legislators voted Wednesday for a constitutional amendment to adopt “no excuses” absentee voting.

After debating for one hour, the state House of Representatives voted 113-38 with all negative votes cast by Republicans. Another 15 Republicans voted in favor of the bipartisan resolution.

The issue has been controversial for years as Democrats want to expand voting rights and Republicans are concerned about potential voter fraud.

Under the rules, legislators needed to pass the resolution for the amendment by a simple majority for the question to be placed on the ballot for all voters during the presidential election year in November 2024.

The question to appear on the ballot is: “Shall the Constitution of the State be amended to permit the General Assembly to allow each voter to vote by absentee ballot?”

Currently, residents can obtain an absentee ballot for specific reasons, including sickness, physical disability, serving overseas in the United States military, and a voter’s absence from the municipality on the day of the vote.

Democrats hailed the idea as a way to ensure that residents can exercise their right to vote.

“It’s really about giving people options,” said House majority leader Jason Rojas, an East Hartford Democrat.

The “no excuses” constitutional amendment is separate from another amendment regarding early voting, which will eventually allow Connecticut residents to vote for 14 days leading up to a general election in November.

House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford said, “If you are unable to leave your home or if you’re going to be gone weeks before early voting begins, this is that other option. That’s why you need both.”

On the House floor, state Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, a conservative Republican from Wolcott who serves as the ranking member of the committee overseeing elections, raised a number of questions as she opposed the amendment. She did not want to see a repeat of a move made during the coronavirus pandemic when many elderly voters were afraid of going to the polls for fear of contracting the virus.

“It is absolutely possible that ballots will be mailed out to every voter in the state of Connecticut” without making a request, she said.

Mastrofrancesco also argued strongly against the notion that Connecticut has restrictive election laws.

“Nobody in this legislature has ever, ever prevented anyone from voting or restricted them from voting,” she said. “The right to vote in a free and fair election as a citizen is our most basic duty.”

Previously, the legislature has debated the difference between the words “sickness” and “illness” regarding obtaining an absentee ballot.

“It doesn’t have to be your sickness,” she said. “If it’s flu season, you can vote by absentee. You’re not lying.”

Citing other states that require signatures to be verified before a person can vote, Mastrofrancesco questioned why that is not the case in Connecticut.

But state Rep. Matt Blumenthal, a Stamford Democrat who co-chairs the committee overseeing election laws, said that some voters sign their name differently at different times, creating difficulty in verification.

“Signature verification is not an effective measure,” Blumenthal said.

“We do have an ID requirement here in Connecticut but not a photo ID requirement,” Blumenthal said, adding that poor residents and members of minority groups often do not have a picture identification.

Mastrofrancesco countered that picture identification is needed to cash a check, board an airplane, and receive hunting and fishing licenses.

“I want the people to trust the process again — to trust elections,” she said. “We don’t have that today.”

Lawmakers cited the case of a former Stamford Democrat town chairman John Mallozzi, who was arrested and found guilty after a trial for absentee ballot fraud. A judge found him guilty last year for 14 counts of second-degree forgery and 14 counts of false statements for signing ballot applications for various town offices when serving as town chairman in 2015.

The applications were made under the names of various voters who had no idea that their names were being used. Mallozzi was sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to pay fines of $35,000.

Politically, lawmakers said that the no-excuses balloting could potentially aid Republicans and Democrats. Blumenthal noted that, historically, the highest number of absentee ballots was cast by Fairfield County Republicans.

“I think it could help both parties,” Ritter said when asked about the political consequences. “What I think has hurt the Republican Party is the people they are running — both at the national level and the state level. They have not had good candidates. They continue to attract self-funded people with no political experience. … Their national leading presidential candidate is very unpopular in Connecticut. Until they run better candidates, you could devise any system you want — no excuse voting, early voting, late voting — they’re going to lose. You need better candidates. Connecticut is not a right-wing state. It is a moderate state, at best, and there are pockets that resent the type of candidates that they are running and the ideas that they espouse. … That’s why they’re losing. Not the way we vote.”

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com.