The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Voting rights need to be expanded, not restricted
These Republican proposals are not popular in Connecticut, but if Republicans had the votes, these proposed bills would be the law in our state.
If Republicans held majorities in Connecticut’s Senate or House of Representatives, access to voting in our state would be more challenging, voter turnout would drop immensely and our democracy would be weakened.
The 2020 election season was a triumph for democracy in Connecticut, due in part to the temporary enactment of noexcuse absentee ballot voting, because we knew it would be reckless and irresponsible to ask Connecticut residents to potentially expose themselves to COVID-19 in order to vote. What’s more, the rejection rate of absentee ballots was the lowest in recent history, just 0.94 percent. Despite this irrefutable fact that absentee ballot voting was not a fraudulent practice and instead was a resounding success, the state’s Republican Party chooses to focus on ways to restrict voting access.
Proposed legislation such as Senate Bill 802 seeks to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballot votes if they’re all not counted by the end of Election Day. If this proposed bill were law, thousands of Connecticut residents would be penalized by having their votes rejected if they were not counted in this unreasonable and arbitrary time frame. Again, last year was a resounding triumph for absentee ballot voting in Connecticut. Still, Republicans seek to restrict absentee ballot voting in the state, proposing bills such as House Bill 6325 and House Bill 6326, which limit the mailing of absentee ballots to voters.
Imagine what the 2020 election would have looked like in our state if voters could not have a ballot mailed to them? Connecticut has one of the oldest populations in the country and these proposed policies would force people of the highest risk for severe illness from COVID-19 to potentially expose themselves to the disease in order to vote. These ideas are discriminatory, cruel and echo the unfounded concerns and outright lies of twice-impeached former President Donald Trump.
Our state’s Republican Party has not stopped at seeking to prevent absentee ballots from being mailed to voters, however. They’ve also decided, based on their alternate reality where if they lose an election there must have been fraud, to eliminate Election Day registration voting.
This is another proposed bill that would disenfranchise eligible voters who wish to participate, and this bill would do so without merit resulting in reduced voter turnout. It appears that voter suppression is both national and state Republican policy.
Research suggests Election Day registration voting leads to greater voter turnout. Republicans in Connecticut aren’t alone in their efforts to make voting more cumbersome; all across the country this seems to be the strategy following record turnout in 2020. Republicans seem to fear democracy.
After Jan. 6, we know such proposals cannot be cast aside as harmless pieces of legislation that will inevitably die in committee. Jan. 6 was the crescendo of former President Donald Trump’s election lies and conspiracy theories. It was fueled by Trump and the flames were fanned by Republicans in Congress and state legislatures around the country that were complicit in their silence or participated with conspiratorial rhetoric and unfounded claims of voting irregularities that should be investigated.
Since the insurrection, we’ve seen the Republican Party split into factions of pro-democracy and pro-conspiracy, conservatism and QAnon. Based on the pieces of legislation seeking to restrict the voting rights of Connecticut residents, it sadly appears the divide that exists in D.C. might be present in Connecticut’s Republican Party, too. Also, these proposals are not popular in Connecticut on both sides of the aisle, but if Republicans had the votes, these proposed bills would be the law in our state.
Democrats have worked to expand voting rights, not to restrict them and will we continue to do the same this legislative session and beyond.