House Advances Absentee Ballots for COVID-19

In 2020 for the first time, Connecticut voters were able to use COVID-19 as an excuse to vote by absentee ballot, but that provision has expired. Lawmakers in the House want to see it extended indefinitely.

“The sickness of COVID which sort of permeates through society could endanger the person you're caring for and I think that’s kind of the situations we’re looking at,” House Speaker Matt Ritter said.

Ritter said this proposed legislation means voters will be able to use COVID as an excuse to vote by absentee ballot.

“The sickness definition is a little broader,” Ritter said.

He said if you’re caring for an elderly parent and worried about bringing home COVID from the polls, this bill would allow you to use sickness as an excuse.

“You know that in every election there are people throughout our state, commuters, health care workers, people who take care of a sick or disabled family member who can’t make it physically to the polls,” Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, said.

Republican lawmakers offered mixed reviews.

“Where a lot of the disagreement comes in really is based in what had happened with our secretary of the state mailing ballots to every household,” House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora said.

Candelora said the proposed bill doesn’t say anything about mailing absentee ballot applications, which is why some members of his party will support it.

“Somebody who's leaving the state for work on Election Day, they’re allowed to get a ballot even if they’re home by 6 o’clock at night,” Candelora said. “Somebody whose loved one is ill or if they’re ill themselves, or if they’re afraid of COVID, they would have the ability to get an absentee ballot.” 

The bill passed the House 126 to 16.

“This bill does not give our state no-excuse absentee voting. But it does expand to the constitutional maximum that absentee voting that is allowed in the interim,” Blumenthal said.

The bill now heads to the state Senate for a vote.