A change that should stay
Among the smart things Gov. Ned Lamont has done over the last few months — and he has done a lot of them — was making it possible for every eligible voter in the state to vote by absentee ballot in the Aug. 11 primary elections for president and a variety of state and municipal offices.
Anything that makes voting available to more people is a good thing.
By “more people” I mean registered, eligible voters.
Lamont’s executive order means a person doesn’t have to represent that they fall into one of the six existing categories that have traditionally qualified a person to vote by absentee ballot: on active military duty, out of town through the entire 14- hour traditional voting session, illness, a religious conflict, physical disability or, finally, working on Election Day as a poll official.
By the way, absentee voting in Connecticut, according to the state Office of Legislative Research, dates back to 1864, when the state accommodated men fighting in the Civil War by letting them vote in absentia.
In 1932, the right was expanded to those who were physically disabled, ill or out of town on Election Day. Folks, it’s 2020.
We bank, shop, communicate, work, research, pay our bills, participate in the U. S. Census, entertain ourselves with music, cat memes, movies and so on from our home computers.
What’s with the go- standin- line thing on Election Day?
Lamont’s decision on absentee ballots for the primary was rightly prompted by the current situation. We are in the middle of a pandemic. COVID- 19 is a very real, very scary prospect.
“Nobody should need to make a decision between their health and their right to vote,” the governor said in a press release that accompanied his executive order of last week.
“Out state has taken every responsible step to this point to ensure that our residents are safe, and the next step we must take is to mitigate the risk of the spread of COVID- 19 when Connecticut residents cast their ballots,” he said.
Though Lamont’s action was particularly reasonable in this Time of Corona, there’s just no reason why more steps can’t be taken to bring the democratic process of voting into the 21st century.
Voting policies differ across the country. States are a patchwork of all- mail voting, early voting, no excuse needed absentee ballot voting, and combinations of those. Connecticut, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, is one of only 13 states that still have no early voting and require an excuse for using an absentee ballot. It makes no sense.
In the 2016 presidential election, some 61 percent of registered American voters participated.
( I’m guessing that figure, which comes from the U. S. Census, doesn’t include the “millions” of illegal votes that Donald Trump complained caused his loss of the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. They were probably some of the same invisible people that Trump said swelled the size of the crowd at his inauguration into the stratosphere.)
Sure, I’ve seen voter fraud in Bridgeport. Votes cast from the address of a long- vacant apartment building. Elderly and confused nursing home residents bamboozled into signing absentee ballot applications and voting by absentee ballot.
People voting as a dead person whose name had not yet been purged from a voting list.
Like deflated footballs, election stunts are always going to be with us.
They are not a reason to make voting more difficult. The more people who take part in elections, the more vibrant the system will be. The more invested those people will be in the status of their communities.
Lamont and the state legislature should push ahead with early voting and noexcuse absentee ballot voting in Connecticut.
When we come out of the Time of Corona, we should be looking ahead, not preoccupied with going back to the way things used to be. Things are never going to be the way they used to be.