Sign Up to Testify on Absentee Ballot Bills before GAE Committee

Sign Up to Testify on Absentee Ballot Bills before GAE Committee

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Time Range For Action Alert: 
Feb 28 2022 to Mar 04 2022

On Friday, March 4th at 10:00am, the Government Administration & Elections Committee will hold a public hearing to discuss two bills:

  • S.B. No. 184 (Raised) An Act Extending Through November 8, 2022, Several Changes Regarding Election Administration as a Result of Covid-19 and Concerning Eligibility to Vote by Absentee Ballot.
  • H.B. No. 5262 (Raised) An Act Revising Certain Absentee Voting Eligibility Statutes.

See the background information on these bills below the Action step.

For those who support expanding access to the ballot, you can sign up to testify - it will make a difference!


ACTION

You may participate in one of the following ways:

  • Register to testify via Zoom. You must register before Thursday at 3pm.
  • Register to testify by phone by calling (860) 240 - 0557. 
  • Email written testimony in Word or PDF format to GAETestimony [at] cga.ct.gov. Clearly state the bill number and your name.

You may watch the public hearing on the GAE YouTube Channel.

If you've never testified before, use this easy-to-follow guide. 

Background on the bills:

SB 184: AN ACT EXTENDING THROUGH NOVEMBER 8, 2022, SEVERAL CHANGES REGARDING ELECTION ADMINISTRATION AS A RESULT OF COVID-19 AND CONCERNING ELIGIBILITY TO VOTE BY ABSENTEE BALLOT.

This bill allows COVID to be a valid reason to use absentee ballots for the November 2022 election. Since we don’t know how COVID-19 will present in the fall—we may have a new variant or a serious uptick in cases that will make it frightening to some to come to a polling place and may make the work schedules of essential workers unpredictable, and therefore difficult to make time to get to the polling place on November 8 — we should extend the exception passed for 2020 and 2021 into the fall of 2022.

HB 5262:  AN ACT REVISING CERTAIN ABSENTEE VOTING ELIGIBILITY STATUTES.

HB 5262 allows for the amendment of the current statute which defines the criteria for obtaining an absentee ballot to cover the fear of illness. 

If you read the bill you will see bracketed text - this means that this bracketed text is meant to be removed in the new bill.  Some of this removal is self-explanatory, e.g. referring to 2020 elections.  The bracketed text at the beginning of the bill brings the language of the statute into greater alignment with the language of the Constitution.  When the Secretary of the State suggested that the "illness" reason in the Constitution could be interpreted to include a public health pandemic as such "illness", she remarked that the statutory language is more exclusionary than the Constitution language.  Notice that the statute refers to absence of the elector during all hours - the Constitution does not mention all hours.  Notice that the statutory language makes "illness" specific to the person - "such elector's or person's illness.”  The legislature that passed these implementing statutes enacted provisions making it more difficult to vote absentee, e.g. requiring that the elector be absent during all hours rather than just be "absent" which is more open to saying, "Well, I was absent for some of the time."  

We hope this helps!

Contact advocacy [at] lwvct.org with any questions.

 

Issues referenced by this action alert: 
Expanding Voter Access