In the last few years, Connecticut has been catching up with other states by increasing access to our elections. On or before November 5, Connecticut voters will have the opportunity to continue this progress when we choose whether the state should consider allowing all voters to cast their ballots by mail.
The question on the ballot is “Shall the Constitution of the State be amended to permit the General Assembly to allow each voter to vote by absentee ballot?”
With a strong yes result, the pressure will be on Connecticut’s legislature to make absentee voting less restrictive.
Absentee voting in Connecticut is currently limited because of language in the state Constitution. As a result, voters today can only vote absentee if they are unable to appear at their polling place on the day of the election because of 1) active service in the U.S. armed forces; 2) absence from town during all the hours of voting; 3) illness; 4) physical disability; 5) their religion forbids secular activity on that day; 6) their duties as an election official at a polling place other than their own during all the hours on that day.
This differentiates us from three dozen other states and the District of Columbia which allow no-excuse absentee voting or vote by mail, states as diverse as Alaska, Maine, Florida, and New Jersey. In the 2022 elections, 43% of U.S. voters voted in person on Election Day, 21% used early voting, and 36% voted by absentee or mail. In that same year, 88% of Connecticut residents voted in person and 12% voted via absentee ballot. (Early Voting was not an option in Connecticut in 2022.) Connecticut voters are clearly interested in more flexibility in their voting options. In the first week of early voting in Connecticut in 2024, 313,550 residents used the flexibility of early voting.
If Connecticut voters choose YES on this ballot question, then the Connecticut General Assembly will have the option to consider no-excuse absentee voting as an option for our elections.
While both early voting and expanded absentee ballot access find themselves part of political debates today, the history of expanding the convenience of voting shows that it has generally been a nonpartisan activity. Rather than being expanded access that is favored by any one political group, historically, support of early and no-excuse absentee voting was most likely to occur in places where the population can benefit from more options for ballot access, including states with larger numbers of seniors, rural populations, and significant distances between homes and polling places.
When people vote, there are benefits to themselves and their communities, including higher levels of civic participation, stronger connections within communities and better outcomes for the individual voters themselves, including in areas like health and well-being.
Voting is power. The literature shows that elected officials give more attention and more resources to communities that vote in higher rates. No-excuse absentee voting is another tool that makes it easier for individuals and communities to vote.
Voting is also good for us. In 2021, the American Medical Association House of Delegates declared voting a social determinant of health, which makes it part of a crucial group of factors that have a major impact on people’s health, well-being, and quality of life.
We want to call attention to the benefits in particular for people with disabilities and their caregivers. No-excuse absentee voting makes voting more accessible to all people impacted by disabilities, including caregivers. Voters with a disability are significantly less likely to vote but are more likely to vote by mail ballot. And while early voting reforms have a marginal effect on the voting behavior of voters with disabilities, no-excuse absentee voting has shown to increase the likelihood of voters with a disability casting a mail ballot.
At the Humphreys Institute, we support policies that make voting accessible to all eligible voters. We recommend a “YES” vote on the ballot question.
Tanya Rhodes Smith MSW is Director of the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work at the University of Connecticut. Shannon R. Lane LMSW, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University. Both are members of the Connecticut Chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network. Emmeline Franklin is a graduate student at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work.