Time for an ambitious voting rights agenda

This year — and this past election cycle — has been unlike any other. States nationwide had to adjust, running an election in the middle of a deadly pandemic. In Connecticut, we actually ran one of the smoothest elections in recent history. And we did it while achieving near-historic levels of voter participation, with close to 80 percent of registered voters casting a ballot. When the stakes couldn’t be higher, our state rose to the challenge.

It happened thanks to legislative leaders who took common-sense steps to expand voting by mail, placing ballot drop boxes in every town, and altogether making it more convenient and accessible to vote. In this effort to protect the health and safety of our most vulnerable, Gov. Ned Lamont, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill and Connecticut legislators stepped up and implemented smart reforms to protect voting rights — and they worked seamlessly.

This year’s election proved that our recent voting reforms worked. But if the Legislature doesn’t act now to make these temporary reforms permanent, Connecticut voters will be back to square one.

If the 2020 election exposed anything, it spotlighted just how far behind our state is compared to the rest of the nation on voting reforms. Just as we were embracing a step forward with mail-in voting, in reality we were implementing changes that already have long existed in other states.

We have an opportunity this legislative session to build on this success and continue on this trajectory, because we’re currently seeing just how fragile democracy can be when elected leaders seek to throw out legal ballots, curb access to the ballot box and disenfranchise millions.

Making additional reforms is not just smart policy. It’s a bulwark against those elected leaders — like President Trump — who actively seek to undermine the credibility of our elections.

First, we need to embrace early in-person voting. Connecticut is one of only six states that doesn’t allow voters to vote early in person. That groups us with an incredibly small number of places that maintain backwards voting rights policies.

And as we know, early voting mitigates against long lines at polling places on Election Day. In 2018, some New Haven residents were forced to wait for up to seven hours to vote — a form of voter disenfranchisement that disproportionately impacts Black and brown people, students and the elderly. Implementing early voting is more convenient for residents, while making our elections more seamless and efficient.

Next, we must make voting by mail permanent. This election cycle, officials sent out an absentee application to every active registered voter (party registrants for the primary, every registered voter regardless of party for the general) for the both the primary and general election — resulting in record high turnout, and a staggering 695,000 absentee ballots cast by mail or in secure ballot drop boxes. Simply put, Connecticut’s foray into expanded mail-in voting was a resounding success. Now it’s time for lawmakers to make it permanent.

And critically important, we must finally pass automatic voter registration in Connecticut to modernize our elections, register hundreds of thousands of new voters and save taxpayer dollars at the same time.

The Center for American Progress estimates 245,396 new voters would be registered in Connecticut in the first year of AVR alone. The concept is simple — when residents interact with state agencies like the DMV, they already provide all of the information necessary to register to vote. An AVR system takes that information and automatically uses it to register voters, unless they choose to opt out. This saves Connecticut residents valuable time and energy, cuts down on duplicative and costly paperwork and, more importantly, would expand voter rights in marginalized communities who have faced barriers to voter participation.

In Oregon, for example, 40 percent of automatic voter registration registrants came from areas with lower incomes and more ethnically diverse populations and were 30 or younger. As this election has shown nationwide, participation in elections is more important than ever.

The bottom line is this. For all of our forward-thinking policies as a state, our incredible educational institutions, our vibrant cities and our thriving suburbs, this election highlighted so many of the ways that Connecticut has fallen behind when it comes to voting rights.

We are truly far behind the rest of the nation. But fortunately, with an international spotlight on mail-in voting, early voting and the importance of common-sense reform, we can use this next session to move into the future and modernize our systems.

Because even though 2020 has been a year unlike any other, it has also been a wake-up call for the work left to do to improve our democracy.

And this legislative session is just the time to do it.