Conn. must catch up with times on voting

There shouldn’t be anything partisan about voting rights. In an ideal world, expanding the franchise would be seen as a basic political goal of all parties, with a corresponding need to sell your ideas to an increasingly more diverse array of voters each election cycle.

We’re far from an ideal world, and partisanship is unavoidable even in otherwise unremarkable events. As a result, the move to make voting easier has been embraced by one side of the political aisle and demonized by the other. It’s a trend that is playing out nationally but one to which Connecticut is not immune.

It’s most visible in Georgia, where Democrats surprised the nation by winning the state’s presidential electors as well as two U.S. Senate seats in recent months. That was followed by a state law pushed by local Republicans that appears aimed at limiting turnout and stopping a repeat of 2020’s surprise results.

That in turn brought a backlash of its own, highlighted by Major League Baseball’s decision to move this year’s All-Star Game out of Atlanta. It’s a reminder that when public officials take stances that hold back progress, there can be unforeseen consequences.

The underlying truth in Georgia and around the country is the problem those laws are ostensibly aiming to solve — rampant voter fraud — doesn’t exist. There is simply no evidence of the kind of widespread wrongdoing that would change the results of an election. Voter fraud as an issue worth cracking down on is fictional, which puts the lie to laws aimed at stamping it out. The real goal is to stop people from voting.

In Connecticut, the situation is different. This state is held back by archaic statutes that limit absentee balloting to just a few circumstances and have no provision for early voting. To find the most restricting voting policies in America, you don’t need to go to the Deep South — it might be right here in New England.

The coronavirus allowed state officials to temporarily change those laws, and the result was a widespread embrace of no-excuses absentee ballots. To make those changes permanent, the Legislature needs to act.

Minority Republicans do not have enough members to stop this process, but they can slow it down. That seems to be their intent, and it follows the lead of the party nationwide. It’s a protest destined to go nowhere.

Connecticut has a long way to go to catch up to other states around the nation that have modernized their voting systems. Colorado, for example, has moved to all mail-in ballots, which has been a smooth process that makes casting a vote easy and convenient. Connecticut isn’t likely to go that far, but there is much more that could be done.

Voting is part of what makes our country great. We need to make it easier for more people to do it. The more people can vote, the better our government will represent the true will of the people.

This state is held back by archaic statutes that limit absentee balloting to just a few circumstances and have no provision for early voting.