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Authorities miss trial deadline

Pabio November 6, 2024

An 11-hour attempt to correct an error that affected more than 1,000 North Stonington voters who cast early ballots failed Tuesday, with polls closed before an early legal action could be filed.

Sources told the Connecticut Mirror that Republican and Democratic party officials worked all day to put together a trial. Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas said she would have welcomed it because it could have clarified the legal situation of the vote.

North Stonington voter registrars admitted Saturday that more than 1,000 residents had been he was wrongly asked not to sign the envelopes containing their ballots when they voted in advance between October 21 and 31.

While the majority of these voters returned to their local polling station Before Election Day to correct their ballots, the city was still trying to locate about 200 voters when polls opened Tuesday. Election officials said if those voters could not be located in time to correct the error on their ballot, their votes would be discarded.

Indications that legal action would be taken Tuesday were bolstered by comments from Thomas, who said she had “heard there might be legal action.”

“I don’t want voters to be disenfranchised because of a problem at the registrar’s office,” Thomas said during his late afternoon news conference to discuss the turnout on election day. “I would be happy with this trial.”

The four candidates potentially affected by the error were the two incumbents, state Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, and Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, and their Democratic opponents, Andrew Parrella and Ty Lamb.

Thomas said Tuesday that voters who are not found in time to redo their ballots will not have their votes counted.

“Anytime humans are involved, human error is possible,” Thomas said. “It is truly unfortunate that despite – I can’t even tell you how many hours of training, manuals, office hours and an emergency hotline – this mistake was never made, but she was. I appreciate that all of our partners are coming together very quickly to try to resolve this issue.

About 900 of the 1,100 spoiled ballots were “counted,” she said. “Either they already came back or they had planned that they would come back today,” Thomas said.

As for the other 200, “their votes won’t be counted” if election officials can’t find them before polls close, Thomas said.

Thomas expressed support for a ballot correction process, which would allow voters to correct their first ballots in person, “if we do it that way again.” She said one of the reasons the state chose to use envelopes for early voting was “because our tabulators weren’t as reliable as they could be — we didn’t want to risk all the extra movements.”

“Some towns wouldn’t have had enough backup tabulators, and if one or two broke down, there wouldn’t have been enough to hold early voting and on Election Day,” Thomas said. “Now that we will have new equipment for 2025, I think the legislature can certainly look into whether, like most places, we can get rid of the envelope altogether and use the tabulator for early voting.”

ACLU of Connecticut officials said Tuesday they are monitoring the election issue in North Stonington and have spoken with state officials to address the problem.

“We expect the State of Connecticut to count every vote. Voting rights and the will of the people are top priorities for the ACLU of Connecticut. The state should provide workable solutions, including a robust vote healing process,” ACLU of Connecticut Executive Director David McGuire said in a press release.

The ACLU criticized Thomas’ comment that votes won’t be counted if people can’t be found in time, calling it “unacceptable.”

“The secretary of state could have fixed this issue a few days ago, instead of declaring today that about 200 votes ‘will not be counted,'” said Dan Barrett, legal director of the ACLU of Connecticut .

Barrett said state law allows the secretary of state to “issue an order” to “any registrar of voters or moderator to correct any irregularity or impropriety.”

“The Secretary of State is not a purely administrative position. There is a formal appeal method that does not require letters from legislators or lawsuits,” Barrett added.

Last weekend, North Stonington’s two voter registrars realized they had asked early voters between Oct. 21 and Oct. 31 not to sign their names on ballot envelopes, a step required by the new in-person voting law passed by the state legislature last session. . They issued a press release ask residents to come back and vote again.

“Until October 31, voters were inadvertently misinformed about the need to sign their early voting envelope,” the statement said. “As a result, it appears that ballot envelopes submitted during this period were not signed by voters, which is required by law. »

Somers, who represents the 18th Senate District that includes North Stonington, said people who voted in good faith early should have their votes counted since it was not their mistake that caused the problem.

Somers and his team spent part of the weekend trying to locate voters to bring them back, but because they knew they wouldn’t be there.

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