Greenwich Woman Fined For Voting Absentee In Daughter's Name: CT SEEC

GREENWICH, CT — A Greenwich woman has agreed to pay a $4,000 fine after she was found to have signed and mailed in a Connecticut absentee ballot in the name of her daughter, who lives in Florida and also voted there, in the Nov. 3, 2020 election, according to the CT State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC).

The woman also agreed to refrain from improper voting in an election, including but not limited to signing an absentee ballot application and an absentee ballot in the name of another, said William Smith, an attorney for the SEEC who worked on the fine agreement.

The commission last week approved the fine agreement during its regularly scheduled meeting.

Smith said the woman submitted for, completed, signed and mailed in a CT absentee ballot, which was later counted, in the name of her daughter, who had no knowledge of what her mother was doing.

The daughter was cleared of any wrongdoing, Smith said.

The matter was originally forwarded to the SEEC by Greenwich Registrars of Voters Fred DeCaro and Mary Hegarty after flags were raised by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which allows participating states to crosscheck voter registration data and determine if someone has voted more than once in an election.

"As to double voting, we are finding that most of our cases involve Connecticut residents who also own residences in Florida, and some of whom felt because they own residences in two states, they should be able to vote twice," said SEEC Chair Stephen Penny during last week's commission meeting. "Fortunately we haven't had a great number of those cases."

Regardless, Penny said, voting twice "is a serious matter."

"We're treating this one seriously. I think the level of the fine suggests that, and also gives us a benchmark for future cases," Penny added.

The state of Florida joined the ERIC system in 2019. In March of this year, the Sunshine State withdrew its ERIC membership.

Secretary of State Cord Byrd said in a news release at the time that he had "an obligation to protect the personal information of Florida’s citizens, which the ERIC agreement requires us to share."

"I don't know how one justifies that conduct," Penny said of Florida's withdrawal, "except to suggest that they feel voting twice is not an issue which we should all, as Americans, find extraordinarily upsetting."