Secretary of the State aims to make voting easier for incarcerated people in CT

Advocates for incarcerated individuals in Connecticut say it needs to be easier for people in custody to cast their ballots. And while a bill being considered in the legislature seeks to expand access, some say it wouldn’t go far enough. 

The proposed bill which passed out of committee in March and awaits a vote in the House, would require the Secretary of the State to provide the Department of Correction with absentee ballot application forms that eligible individuals in custody could fill out, and to distribute them to those people. 

“It is the very least we can do to chip away at this problem,” Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas said during a forum at the Capitol on Tuesday.

An incarcerated person who wants to vote in Connecticut has to do so by absentee ballot, and they remain voters in the town they last resided, not where the prison is located. Thomas explained that this means incarcerated people — who have no access to the internet — must research the name of their town clerks, write a letter to the clerk requesting an absentee ballot application form, mail that letter to the town, receive the application form, fill it out, mail it back, and wait for the absentee ballot itself to arrive.

“And hopefully this all happens by 8 p.m. on Election Day,” Thomas said.

Absentee ballots are only available 31 days before a general election, Thomas said, and the slow speed of the postal system often prevents the ballots from arriving in time to be counted by a town clerk. 

Only people convicted of a felony lose their right to vote in Connecticut — and only while they’re incarcerated. People convicted of a misdemeanor, or people awaiting trial who can’t afford to post bail, retain their voting rights. According to Department of Correction statistics, about 3,800 of the 11,200 people incarcerated in Connecticut have not been sentenced. 

Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee, said the bill was developed in collaboration with the Secretary of the State’s Office and in discussion with advocates. 

“Obviously with legislation like this, there’s always a balance between trying to provide as much access as possible to the voters and the logistical details which need to be practicable and communicable,” Blumenthal said.  

Avery Gilbert, a clinical lecturer at Yale Law School, said the state’s voting restrictions for people convicted of felonies should be revisited, too. Some of those individuals who’ve completed their sentences remain afraid to vote, even after the right is restored. 

Gilbert also said simply providing absentee ballot applications to incarcerated individuals isn’t enough because the bill doesn’t require the Department of Correction to distribute the applications — and it doesn’t cover the cost of postage. 

“Simply putting absentee ballot applications in facilities is a nice first start. There’s no guarantee that those are going to be handed out. There’s no guarantee that someone is going to be informed enough to know to put it in the envelope, have the resources to get the postage, mail it, and do all those things in a timely fashion,” Gilbert said. 

Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, said he opposed the bill — and he voted against it — because he’s concerned about simply giving absentee ballot applications to the Department of Correction to distribute. “I think that there’s an opportunity for abuse there,” Sampson said. 

Sampson said in similar situations where a large number of voters is living in one place, such as with a nursing home, a local registrar of voters would go in person to the facility to distribute absentee ballots. 

Thomas it was difficult to offer in-person voting at a correctional institution, since Democrat and Republican registrars of voters from multiple towns would have to be at the correctional facilities to oversee the process.

Sampson said he believed incarcerated people should instead vote in the town where the correctional facility was located, rather than their hometown.

Blumenthal said while he understands the bill isn’t a “panacea,” legislators are waiting to see how the new absentee ballot application regulations work before making additional demands on the Department of Correction. 

“Before we require DOC to take specific action, I think we want to see how this process works on a voluntary basis in terms of DOC’s involvement,” Blumenthal said. 

The bill does require Department of Correction staff to ensure absentee ballots are delivered to each incarcerated person even if they’ve been transferred to another facility in the system.

Blumenthal added that some advocates had also expressed concern around DOC staff forcing people in custody to vote rather than just assisting them. And he said he feared covering the cost of postage might make the bill less likely to pass at a time when state finances are limited.

Thomas said her office has created printed and digital materials for incarcerated individuals describing the voting process, and she said her office is working with DOC to schedule voter registration drives at different prison facilities through the remainder of the spring, summer and fall.  

Gilbert said that communities with the highest rates of incarceration, like Hartford and Bridgeport, also have the lowest numbers of people voting. 

“These are habits, they are behaviors, and they inform and impact generational poverty for years to come,” she said. “I don’t think anybody in this room would disagree that all children’s interests should be represented in some way, and incarcerated parents don’t have that opportunity to influence resources going to their children’s schools, to influence the issues that matter deeply to their community.” 

James Jeter, the executive director of the Full Citizens Coalition to Unlock the Vote, echoed Gilbert, saying that many people he knew from his time being incarcerated hadn’t even thought about voting. He blamed this partially on the policy of eliminating the right to vote for people convicted of felonies during their time in prison. 

“When you talk about civic engagement and even real forms of rehabilitation, how do you make someone more communal and civically minded when conditions that are completely results of policy decisions have really not allowed them to?” he said. “The degradation of levels of poverty in this state don’t allow people to think as a community. They just think about surviving.” 

And he added that if one generation in a family hasn’t made a habit of voting, the younger generations tend not to either.

Thomas said she knew simply showing up with absentee ballot application forms wasn’t going to be enough to convince people to vote. She said her office has uploaded civics information and a voter guide to the tablets incarcerated people use to communicate. 

“Yes, we need to look at access to the actual ballot, but I also believe that we need to look more closely at — how do you offset this lack of belief that your voice even has agency?” said Thomas. “I hope the legislature will take that up in addition to providing access in future sessions.”