Secretary of the state reaches settlement on posts
Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas has reached a settlement with the State Elections Enforcement Commission over the use of state resources that promoted the ratification of the 2022 constitutional amendment to create a system of early voting in Connecticut.
The deal comes after a complaint last year by Kevin Rennie of South Windsor, a columnist for The Hartford Courant, who charged that the Secretary of the State’s Office, then headed by Mark Kohler, violated state regulations during the runup to the passage of the amendment, through the use of social media posts supporting the amendment.
Thomas, a former state representative from Norwalk, was first elected to the secretary’s office in that same November 2022 statewide election, after Kohler filled in following the resignation of Denise Merrill, in 2021.
Earlier this year, the General Assembly approved a framework for early voting as required by the constitutional amendment.
“This commission, in taking its jurisdiction to investigate the matter, has relied on its authority to regulate ballot questions,” said William Smith, attorney for the SEEC during the commission’s Wednesday meeting.
“In this instance, as alleged, there were a series of Twitter posts. The commission, therefore, using its standard for determining whether an expenditure to promote a ballot question had occurred, we applied the standard for advocacy and determined that the tweets in fact were promoting the support for the passage of the constitutional amendment and early voting that was on the ballot.”
Part of the investigation included evidence that a tweet from the Secretary of the State’s Office said “46 other states do it. Alabama, New Hampshire, Mississippi and Connecticut do not.”
Another said “46 states can vote early. Four cannot. Connecticut is one of the four.”
The question was approved with 60 percent of statewide voter approval. “A small number of tweets characterized early voting as valuable for democracy and good policy,” the agreement said.
In the settlement, which includes no fine or civil penalty, Thomas “agrees that state statutes would prohibit her from expending state funds to advocate for electors to vote for or against a pending constitutional referendum question if a constitutional amendment was on the ballot in a future election,” the agreement, citing 16 tweets in September, October and November, 2022.
At the time, there were 7,663 Twitter followers for the Secretary of the State.
“The costs of the communication were minimal,” the settlement says. “The medium (Twitter) is generally free to use, however staff time and state equipment was used in producing and publishing the social media posts. All are considered an expenditure of public funds, however minor.”
The state is on track, in the 2024 statewide election, to ask voters whether they would approve an amendment to the Constitution to allow for no-excuse absentee — or mail-in — balloting.
Smith said the SEEC investigation determined that a reasonable person, reviewing the tweets on the platform now called X, could conclude that the Secretary of the State’s Office was supporting and promoting the ballot question.
Smith pointed to state law prohibiting the use of state money to influence electors on ballot questions.
“While the commission does concede that it is not the amount of expenditure made, but rather that a public expenditure was made,” Smith said, stressing that the Secretary of the State’s Twitter account and staff time in terms of posting the tweets, was “certainly” at some public cost.
“The commission points out it does not impact the secretary’s speech itself, or state that she is otherwise prohibited from her authority to administer and to take a position on a constitutional amendment to the extent that she avoids using public funds to advocate while that amendment is pending,” Smith added.