Connecticut could join other states in allowing early voting

Following more than 40 other states, Connecticut residents would be able to vote earlier than Election Day under a bill released Thursday.

The bill calls for early, in-person voting for 14 days before a general election in November, seven days before the statewide August primaries, four days before special elections, and four days before presidential primaries.

The bill gives wide latitude to cities and towns to run their elections, but each municipality must have at least one early-voting location.

The locations are required to be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., but have extended hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the last Tuesday and Thursday before primaries and general elections.

“For almost three centuries now, we have had some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country, and that is in large part because they have been restricted by our state constitution,” said Rep. Matt Blumenthal, an attorney who co-chairs the committee overseeing elections.

Republicans, though, were not happy because they were not included and did not see the final version of the bill until Thursday.

House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford raised questions about the costs and predicted it would be difficult to find workers to operate the polls for 14 days before elections.

“The bill is totally problematic,” Candelora told reporters Thursday. “It is written for the Democrat Party. It’s not written for democracy. … They wrote the bill on their own.”

Although voting on weekends is allowed, Candelora said, “Being open essentially during working hours only doesn’t help the people that are commuting in and out of towns. There are weekends, but the point is five days during the week is limited to just the town hall hours. What type of demographic is this catering to? We would have rather seen it truncated and more extended hours for everybody to get out and vote.”

But House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford said voters would no longer be boxed into a single day from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. to cast their ballots.

“For that working mother who has two jobs, we’re making sure that she can vote,” Ritter told reporters in his Capitol office.

Democrats pushing for the bill say that Connecticut is behind the times when compared to more than 40 states and needs to make better provisions for voters headed to the polls. The reason for the delay, they said, is that Connecticut’s voting provisions can be changed only by constitutional amendment, an often-lengthy, years-long process that is not required in some other states.

Early, in-person voting is common around the country but has never become law in the Land of Steady Habits. To ease the restrictions, lawmakers had proposed two separate constitutional amendments for early voting and “no excuse” absentee ballots.

The amendment on early voting was approved by 63% of voters last November, and the legislature will vote again separately on the amendment for the “no excuse” ballots.

In November 2014, Connecticut voters rejected a constitutional amendment on absentee ballots that asked them in a one-sentence question if the Constitution should be changed. Proponents said the wording was confusing, while others said the issue was simply defeated.

The question was: “Shall the Constitution of the state be amended to remove restrictions concerning absentee ballots and to permit a person to vote without appearing at a polling place on the day of an election?” That came off as an unpalatable idea, and 53 percent of voters shot it down.

Nationally, the average time for early voting is 22 days before the election, lawmakers said. The shortest time frame nationally is three days, while the longest is 45 days before an election, they said.

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com