Merrill seeking to modernize Connecticut elections

By Scott Benjamin

HARTFORD – Secretary of the State Denise Merrill wants to pull Connecticut’s Election Day access into the 21^st Century by adding early voting – a constitutional step that she believes would boost turnout and also take pressure off municipal election officials following a mid-term turnout last year that was almost equal to a presidential race.

She is campaigning to acquire the 75 percent support needed in both the state House and the Senate to put the question on the November 2020 ballot as a referendum question and make early voting operational in 2022.

Merrill, a Democrat who is now in her third term as Connecticut’s top elections official, said 39 states and the District of Columbia have approved early voting, which in Connecticut would allow at least three days before the election in which voters could cast their ballots at one polling place per municipality. In most cases it would be the town hall.

“People are asking, ‘Why can’t you do it here?” she said in an interview.

Merrill, who now lives in Hartford after residing for many years in Mansfield, said that long commutes and busy schedules that sometimes keep voters from getting to the polls.

The Secretary of the State said early voting would “take pressure off” the town clerks and voter registrars, because all of the voting will not be done on one day.

“That’s why I’m so dedicated to getting this passed,” Merrill said. “Right now, everyone has to come on one day. That’s putting pressure on them. That’s why there are long lines.”

CT Mirror has reported that Connecticut is one of only three states that currently ban early voting through their constitutions.

The state has experienced a surge in new voters, particularly among younger residents.

Between the two-year cycle leading into the 2010 midterm election and the cycle leading into the 2018 balloting, registration among 18-to-24-yearolds increased from 28,756 in 2010 to 90,018 2018 in Connecticut, according to figures provided by Gabe Rosenberg, the communications director in the Secretary of the State’s office.

“We tripled our registration,” said Merrill. “We had never seen that before.”

Sources have said the surge was partly due to Connecticut’s easy access to registration, the high-profile polarizing effect of President Donald Trump’s administration and the Fight Back CT initiative that U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire) helped develop, which, according to CT Mirror, made 1 million phone calls and visited 250,000 homes during the 2018 midterm elections.

Merrill recently proposed that 16 year old residents be able to pre-register with the actually registration taking effect when they turn 18 years old. She said their initial pre-registration would be put in a special field in the voter registration system.

“If you let people feel like that they’re a voter, they become a voter,” Merrill said regarding the proposal to allow 16 year olds to pre-register at the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

CTNewsJunkie has reported that 13 states and the District of Columbia allow 16 year olds to pre-register.

Merrill said there has been less emphasis in some families over the recent years about going to the polls.

“In the ‘50s and ‘60s [young people] would have known a lot about voting,” she said. “It would be socially unacceptable not to vote.”

The Washington Post has reported that former Democratic President Bill Clinton said during a talk in 2003 at Georgetown University, his alma mater, that if people 30 and under voted at the same rate as those 55 and older, you would have a different U.S. Congress.

Former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-East Haddam) said in a 1981 speech that one of the first places where then-President Ronald Reagan cut spending was college student loans since the political risk was less since so relatively few 18-24-year-olds voted.

Regarding the near presidential-like turnout in 2018, Merrill has said that long lines at polling locations have deterred some people from voting and put more pressure on municipal election officials. There were reports of at least a four-hour wait at one New Haven polling place last year, according to CTNewsJunkie.

The Secretary of the State’s 2019 legislative package is calling for each municipality to submit an Election Day management plan at least 30 days before the balloting.

State House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz (D-Berlin) and state House Majority Leader Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) support early voting and want it considered early in the current session. which ends in June.

State Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan (D-2) of Bethel stated in a prepared statement that, “Early voting would give constituents options that take into account their busy schedules, and a no-excuse absentee voting system would reduce both poll lines and the administrative burden on election officials. These reforms could ideally decrease the total cost of administering elections.”

However, Merrill will need bipartisan support to get the question on the ballot in 2020.

“We have actually had quite a bit of Republican support, particularly in the House,” she said.

“I don’t know yet about the Senate,” Merrill said. But, she noted that Kevin Witkos (R-Canton), the state Senate Minority Leader Pro Tempore, has endorsed early voting.

“I’m open to the idea,” state Rep. Steve Harding (R-107) of Brookfield said of early voting. “However, this could be simply achieved by using the absentee system that we already have and simply removed the current requirement and let anyone who wishes to vote do so by absentee ballot.”

Merrill said she also is seeking to make it easier to acquire an absentee ballot, which can only be distributed to voters who are going to be out of town on Election Day.

“I think it should be streamlined,” she said. “It’s very complicated now to issue absentee ballots. The town clerks have told me about it over and over again.”

If early voting doesn’t generate at least 75 percent support in both chambers this year, it could still be considered by voters in 2022 ballot as a referendum question if it is approved by more than 50 percent legislators in both chambers in either of the following two years. That would mean that the soonest that early voting could be in place would be 2024.

Merrill, who was the House Democratic leader immediately before being elected Secretary of the State in 2010, said, “It just makes it a longer process” without strong bipartisan support. Democrats now hold 90-60 and 22-14 majorities, respectively in the state House and Senate.

“I’m encouraged,” Merrill said of the prospects for being approved this session. “It’s not impossible.”

CT Mirror reported that an earlier version of early voting went to referendum in November 2014 and was defeated 491,447 to 453,070.

The online niche journalism web site has stated that the defeat has been at least partly blamed on a poorly-worded amendment on voter restrictions to absentee ballots and less emphasis on early voting.

CT Mirror reported that state Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) said he wanted to be assured that there would not be voter fraud with early voting.

“I don’t know why he brought that up in that context,” said Merrill. “[Fraud in our elections has been] virtually non-existent.”

On a related subject, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) have sponsored legislation to mandate that “every state provide registered voters the opportunity to vote by mail,” according to a news release from Wyden.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire) is a co-sponsor.

Wyden stated that since Oregon adopted the system in 2000 it “has consistently ranked among the states with the highest turnout in the nation.” He added that Oregon already has a signature authentication system for its mail-in voting.

The senator stated that in Oregon the program has “shown to reduce Election Day costs.”

“I think that mail-in voting is a very interesting idea,” Merrill said, noting that if the early voting constitutional amendment were approved in Connecticut it would make it possible at some point to add that feature.

“You can consult,” she said. You can think it over.”

However, Merrill acknowledged that, “It would be a big change for Connecticut,” which is known as the Land of Steady Habits.

On another topic, since 2000 a tiny number of Democratic presidential primaries have utilized Internet voting.

“I find that at this point to be unacceptable with the concerns with cyber security,” said Merrill.

Merrill, who expressed concerns about the hazards of cyber interference last year, said she has had meetings with the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to combat hacking of election results and voter lists. She has stated that Connecticut was targeted but overcame the issue through its cybersecurity defenses.

She said there is a statewide voter file that is not on the Internet, but it is accessible in each of the 169 municipalities.

“It’s a concern and it’s going to continue,” Merrill said regarding cyber interference. She has proposed for the next fiscal year that her office add a cyber security specialist, who would “work with the towns and with our own IT [information technology] staff to be able to address” the issues.

Merrill said that federal grant money “would be used to augment” the new costs for the position.

The Secretary of the State said that a cyber security specialist also would “work with towns to identify issues,” noting that registrars of voters and town clerks have information stored in desktop computers.

“Our office would be able to see what was going on in all of the registrars across the state,” said Merrill.

On another topic, the Secretary of the State said that the proposal by former U.S. Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), who is running for president in 2020, to make Election Day a federal holiday “would be great” since, among other things, voters would have more availability to get to the polls.

“I also think there is a psychology to it,” Merrill added. “People know that it is Election Day. It’s time to go vote.”

She recently testified before a General Assembly committee to make Election Day a state holiday. In February, Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) announced his support for taking that step.

State Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury has said he endorses the concept but noted that on a state holiday some people still go to work since retail stores, convenience outlets and other businesses would still be open, which means a number of voters would still have limited time to get to the polls and provisions might have to be made to encourage employers to allow time for them to vote.

Also, Merrill is seeking to make the ballots in the 169 municipalities uniform.

“Some towns have double-sided ballots,” she explained. “That’s always a problem because some people don’t turn it over to the second side.”

Merrill said she laments that many voters have limited engagement in municipal issues.

“People watch the network news excessively,” the Secretary of the State said. “They can tell you what President Trump tweeted last night, but they probably know little about their town government or who their state legislators are.”

“It’s terrible,” Merrill said of the lower turnouts for the municipal elections. “That is the place where you can have the most impact.”

She said that it “will be interesting” to see this November if the surge in recently-registered voters from the recent cycle will also participate in the municipal election voting.

In 2015, former Democratic President Barack Obama called for mandatory voting, which reportedly is practiced in 32 countries.

USA Today has reported that in Australia, which has more than a 90 percent turnout for its national elections, on a first offense voters that don’t turnout get a letter that they have to pay a $20 fee, which can be excused for almost any reason. The fees are used to fund the administration of the program.

“I’ve thought about this and people have asked me about this, and the concept rubs me the wrong way,” Merrill said. She said voting should be “an expression” of people’s enthusiasm to participate.

“But it would be an interesting experiment,” she added.

Regarding proposals by Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and former hedge fund manager David Stemerman of Greenwich to move the primaries from August to May or early June, Merrill said she believes one step in the nominating process would have to be eliminated so that there would be ample time to hold the regular session of the General Assembly and have primaries well before the general election.

Otherwise, she said it “would be hard to manage.”

Boughton and Stemerman - who placed second and third, respectively, in last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary – have said more people would turn out during a spring primary and it would provide the winner with a chance to better prepare a platform and campaign for the fall.

Merrill said that many states have primaries without a convention.

There has been increased talk, at least among Republicans, about eliminating the convention, since last year Madison businessman Bob Stefanowski was not even nominated at the convention but easily won the primary.

There has been discussion that Stefanowski’s candidacy underscored the lesser value of conventions, since he began running television commercials in January – seven months before the primary – while some of the other GOP hopefuls were still scurrying for small contributions to qualify for the state Citizen Election Program grants.

Stemerman and former Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Dominic Rapini of Branford have said they have concerns about devoting most of their attention to campaigning among about 1,200 delegates who will voting at the nominating convention.

Regarding turnout, she said since the August primary was adopted in 2004, there has been a similar turnout to what had occurred in September for decades before the change, which apparently refutes the charge that during the height of the summer vacation season is a poor time to hold a primary.

In 1984 Republicans adopted open primaries, in which unaffiliated voters could participate, after then-U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker, a native of Greenwich, captured his third term and installed his campaign manager as the state Republican Party chairman. Weicker, a moderate Republican at the time, had been noted for getting a large percentage of unaffiliated voters.

There was a challenge at that time because Connecticut had a closed primary law.

Analyst Mary Janicki has stated that a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision indicated that Connecticut’s closed primary law was unconstitutional.

Even with that ruling, Connecticut Republicans opted not to continue their quest to hold open primaries.

The Nutmeg State is now one of only a small handful of states that have closed primaries.

Merrill said, “I think that would be an advantage for a party if only one party did it. But neither of them seem to think so, because neither of them have done it,” except for the Republicans’ brief foray a generation ago.

She noted that for many years more voters have registered as unaffiliated even though they are prohibited from voting in the primaries.

“I don’t think that the new generation is as engaged in party politics,” Merrill explained, “People who register don’t think that much about primaries. They’re not involved in party politics at all.”

No Labels, the national group that promotes bipartisanship, has stated that aside from generating a larger turnout, they can be further justified because unaffiliated voters pay taxes that are used to finance the costs of the primaries.

Stemerman has called on the party to hold open primaries in an effort to attract more support from unaffiliated voters for Republican candidates. The Day of New London and The Hartford Courant wrote editorials last August in support of open primaries.

However, Merrill said “I don’t know” if open primaries in Connecticut would generate larger turnout in the general elections.

On a separate subject, Merrill said doesn’t plan to again try to eliminate, as she did in 2015, the positions of the elected voter registrars in the municipalities and replace them with trained non-partisan appointees.

She said that she has “chosen to work with the present system.”

Merrill said that registrars now “must be certified” and she believes” [the system has] gotten better.”