Officials: Citizens jittery about voting absentee
STAMFORD – It’s no wonder voters are baffled about the workings of absentee balloting.
They’ve mostly been missing from the process.
Only 6 percent to 8 percent of voters typically cast absentee ballots in elections, largely because Connecticut has one of the most restrictive systems in the country, said Gabe Rosenberg, communications director for the Secretary of the State, the office that oversees elections.
But this year’s politically charged presidential race is taking place in the middle of a pandemic, and it may be that half to three-quarters of registered voters will vote by mail to avoid possible COVID-19 contagion at the polls.
“Almost everyone engaging in this process now has never done it before,” Rosenberg said. “So everything is new and unfamiliar.”
Stamford Town Clerk Lyda Ruijter said her office has been inundated with questions.
“It’s overwhelming,” Ruijter said. “There’s no way for us to handle all the calls and emails.”
Confusion about mail-in balloting has been complicated by voter angst over slowed delivery and controversy over recent changes at the U.S. Postal Service.
Hold off, voters
It has Stamford voters requesting applications for absentee ballots now, Ruijter said.
“We’re telling voters to hold off because we’re still finishing up the paperwork from the (Aug. 11) presidential primary, and we have to focus on processing the absentee ballot applications we get from Stamford residents living overseas. Those have to be done first and there are a lot of them,” Ruijter said.
“The applications coming to our office now have to be processed manually, and it’s very time-consuming. So we’re asking people to wait until they receive the applications the state is mailing to them,” she said. “Those have a bar code that we scan, and that goes fast.”
The Secretary of the State is mailing absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in Connecticut. Those who wish to vote by mail on Nov. 3 must fill out and return the application. Once applications are verified, voters will be mailed ballots beginning Oct. 2.
Voters are trying to understand the system, said Michelle Abt, a member of the executive committee of the 500-member Stamford chapter of Indivisible, a nationwide group of activists who work for progressive policies and to inform voters.
“We’re hearing from tons of people. They really are not sure. There’s a lot of, ‘How does this work?’” Abt said. “Because of what’s going on at the post office, people want to make sure they are doing things right so their ballot will be counted and they won’t get left behind.”
Quantities of queries
Abt said Indivisible Stamford and other grassroots groups are working with Ruijter to get out the information voters need. Ruijter created a fact sheet to help answer voters’ questions and correct misunderstandings.
One is that voters who received an absentee ballot for the Aug. 11 primary will automatically get one for the Nov. 3 election.
Not true, Rosenberg said. “You have to fill out another application if you want an absentee ballot for
November,” Rosenberg said. “That’s Connecticut law.”
The state will mail applications to all registered voters in mid-September, he said.
“We’re rolling them out. The first ones should hit right after Labor Day, so some places may get them earlier,” Rosenberg said.
But no one, no matter how soon they apply, will receive an absentee ballot before Oct. 2, he said.
“It’s in the state statutes that ballots can’t be sent out until then,” Rosenberg said. “Connecticut allows minor parties to cross-endorse candidates, and we have to wait for them to make their endorsements.”
Wrong-century system
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has tried to change the law for years, and the pandemic, which will tax the vote-by-mail system, has increased the need to do it, Rosenberg said.
“We have an 18th century voting system we’re trying to graft onto a 21st century problem,” he said.
Voters sometimes confuse the process of applying for an absentee ballot with the process for obtaining an actual ballot, he said.
They may download and print an application from the state’s website, myvote.ct.gov/absentee, Rosenberg said, but they can’t do that with a ballot.
“Ballots are printed on special paper so optical scanners can read them,” he said. “Besides that, there are cybersecurity concerns with downloaded ballots.”
Some Stamford residents who requested absentee ballots for the Aug. 11 primary received them days after the primary was over. Anyone who has reason to doubt that their absentee ballot will arrive in time to be counted on Nov. 3 may vote in person, Rosenberg said.
The system has checks and balances that prevent voters from casting more than one ballot, he said.
“If your absentee ballot arrives in the town clerk’s office on election day, they won’t know that when you show up at the poll, and they will let you vote,” he said. “But then they will check the absentee ballot against the poll book, see that you did both, and discount one.”
If you go to your polling place not knowing that your absentee ballot arrived in the town clerk’s office in time, “they will see that and not let you vote in person,” Rosenberg said.
Drop box, mailbox
Voters who wish to cast an absentee ballot should fill out the application as soon as they receive it and do the same when they get the ballot in October, Rosenberg said.
But try not to use the mail, he said. On July 31 Merrill received a letter from the postal service’s attorney saying absentee ballots should be mailed by Oct. 27 if they are to be received in time to be counted on Nov. 3.
“If the post office is announcing its own unreliability, then we are recommending that voters use the ballot drop boxes,” Rosenberg said. “That takes the post office out of it. It’s just as easy as putting it in a mailbox and it guarantees that the ballot gets there on time.”
Stamford has two ballot drop boxes. One is on the lobby level in the parking garage of the Stamford Government Center, 888 Washington Blvd. The other is outside Ferguson Library’s Harry Bennett Branch at 115 Vine Road.