Try, Try Again

Last week we speculated about the first attempt at early voting and well, not so good results. After two weeks of keeping voting polls open across the state for the Republican primary for the US Senate contest, and also various towns and cities where there were?primary races for both Democratic and Republican seats in the CT Legislature, the participation levels were not good. Hamden lead the state with 15% participation, with some towns reporting less than 5% participation. It appeared that CT voters like to go to the polls, they like the opportunity to show the flag so to speak, and demonstrate their opinions in person on Election Day.?

There’s always been the debate about the former September primary voting date and the current August?primary date and the fact that it did not increase participation as expected. So it now seems that this second adjustment, allowing for early voting thought to increase voter participation, also isn’t what CT voters are seeking. With about 10% of eligible voters participating, it looks as if more work is to be done.?

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas even admits that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to make the costs and administrative time invested justify the lackluster results. Come November, voters will take a second look at allowing for no excuse absentee ballots and many are questioning the need for both early voting and no excuse absentee balloting and the burden it places on the mostly part-time election officials who are charged with administering our election process.?

You may not know, but the registrars are elected by town or city voters and the clerks are appointed by their city officials. Many are paid a token fee to take on this role and each year it seems that they are asked to do more and more with less and less resources. It seems that if the consensus is that CT wants to have a full-time elections schedule, then they need to revisit the financial commitment of those election officials. It’s also important to mention that more and more reported voter fraud and irregular as well as tight election results are also putting pressure on election operations across the state.?

It seems that CT has to take a strategic look at how our democracy should be sustained. Specifically, we need to take a realistic look at the costs of a mostly volunteer system of poll workers and the need for volunteers to step up to fill those required positions. It’s year after year of “I have newer/ better/ additional ideas on how to get voters out to vote”. Maybe folks should look to the voters, not the advocates, to test the waters and find out why they don’t vote and what change can be made to encourage them to vote.

With the lack of civility in the polarized political culture, maybe some should explore the impact said polarization has had on voter participation dropping election by election. Maybe folks should seriously look, with a nonpartisan view, at why so many seats are not being challenged and for some, the local political parties have to beg folks to throw their hats into the ring. To me, this is how you increase voter participation: ask the voters why they aren’t voting, ask the community members why they are not volunteering to run for office, rather than keep tweaking or overhauling a process and hoping voters will come back to the polls.?

Basic marketing and retail sales professionals understand how to raise their “market share” and elections are certainly retail operations, so let’s get some innovative marketing gurus around a table with the Secretary of the State and look at the branding of CT’s election process, develop some creative/ innovative ways to recreate that election day buzz, and appeal to the younger generation in a voice that will resonate?and draw them into the fold.?

So enough of my soapbox opinions. What I do know is that I won a burger at the infamous Angie and Rays in East Hartford from a friendly town registrar of voters for winning a bet that no more than 204 voters would show up in her town for early voting.?I’m excited to go but sad it’s for the reason I’m going.?

As we all know, the path to success is often paved with setbacks, but “if you are in front of a wall that you cannot get past, why would you just keep banging your head into the wall? No, you would find another wall.” – French Athlete

Let’s do our duty.