Lamont allows more local officials to begin early processing of ballots

Election officials in 19 Connecticut towns and cities that missed a deadline last week will be allowed to partially process mail-in ballots beginning Friday at 5 p.m., in an attempt to make it easier counting votes on Election Day, under an executive order issued Thursday night by Gov. Ned Lamont.

Only 18 towns made the initial deadline last week, including Guilford, Norwalk, Westport, Derby, Greenwich and North Haven. Nineteen other communities requested inclusion afterward, including Milford, Southbury, Stratford, Monroe, Ridgefield, Brookfield, Meriden, Danbury, Middletown, Ansonia, Thomaston and New Haven.

Local election officials who wanted to join in the pre-processing, in which envelopes containing mailin ballots are removed from their outer envelopes, had to request inclusion in the program by Thursday night, five days before the election. State election officials Thursday night were not certain if more than the 19 towns and cities would be included in the program.

The expedited opening of outer envelopes was part of legislation overwhelmingly approved during the recent special session of the General Assembly that included allowing any voters to use the mail-in process if they are concerned about the coronavirus pandemic.

Town clerks have already received about 550,000 completed absentee ballots. The original deadline to opt into the voluntary preprocessing program was October 24.

Local voting officials are allowed to start opening the inner envelopes of absentee ballots and tabulating mailin votes starting at 6 a.m. on Election Day.

“Although these towns missed a deadline, there was clearly value in their being able to open the outer envelopes a couple days earlier,” said Gabe Rosenberg, general counsel for Secretary of the State Denise Merrill. “Making it easier for local election officials helps voters, too. This is obviously a great incentive.”

During a briefing for reporters on Thursday, Paul Mounds, Gov. Ned Lamont’s chief of staff, said that on Wednesday, Merrill asked for the new executive order, extending the deadline to let more local voting officials join the pre-processing effort. “As that deadline came about, many towns realized that they wanted to exercise that right,” said Mounds, adding that legislative leaders and the state attorney general were both consulted.

Also on Thursday, Merrill announced the latest registration numbers heading into the election, including a total of 2.3 million registered voters. There are 850,046 Democrats, 480,026 Republicans and 939,679 unaffiliated voters.

“It is so exciting to see a record-breaking number of Connecticut voters, especially younger voters, set to make their voices heard on Tuesday,” Merrill said in a statement. “We are poised to see the largest number of voters participating in a Connecticut election ever, despite the 2020 election being held under the most challenging circumstances in a century.”