More than 600 people in North Stonington returned to their local polling station on Sunday to cast a new ballot after election officials failed to tell voters to sign the ballot envelopes that are used during early in-person voting.
Still, hundreds of other ballots remain in question as a result of those mistakes.
The town’s registrars of voters said Saturday that more than 1,000 ballots in total were missing the required signatures. And they instructed people who cast one of those ballots between Oct 21. and Oct. 31 to return to their polling location.
That announcement led to people lining up at the town’s early voting location on Sunday to recast a ballot ahead of this week’s presidential election.
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Bob Carlson, North Stonington’s first selectman, said he stood at the front doors of the North Stonington Education Center on Sunday to take questions from the voters and to apologize for the mistake.
Carlson, a Republican, said local officials attempted to call all of the voters who did not sign their ballot envelopes and he said they also used social media to inform people that they needed to return to cast a new ballot on Sunday, which was the last day of early voting, or during Election Day on Tuesday.
Most of the voters Carlson interacted with were understanding of the mistakes that occurred. But others, he said, were upset that their votes were jeopardized by instructions they received from election officials.
“Everyone’s vote should count,” Carlson said.
The more than 600 voters who cast a new ballot on Sunday will have their votes counted, according to local officials. As will any other voters who cast a new ballot on Election Day.
It’s unclear, however, what will happen in instances where voters are unable to return to their voting precincts.
The Connecticut Secretary of the State’s Office has not responded to multiple questions about the ballot mistakes in North Stonington since the problem became public on Saturday.
Republican leaders in the Connecticut Legislature sent a letter on Sunday to Stephanie Thomas, who is in her first term as secretary of the state, asking her to order local election officials to count all of the unsigned ballots.
And they specifically cited a line in state law that says the secretary of the state “may issue an order, whether orally or in writing, to any registrar of voters or moderator to correct any irregularity or impropriety in the conduct of such election.”
“It is unreasonable to expect early voters, who may for a variety of reasons be unable to return to their voting location a second time, to correct a harmless error that was the direct result of misinformation provided by election officials,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Connecticut Mirror asked whether the Secretary of the State’s Office agreed with that interpretation of the law, but the office did not respond to a list of emailed questions.
In the meantime, Republican officials are discussing whether a lawsuit needs to be filed in state court to prevent the voters who did not sign their envelopes and do not return to cast a new ballot in North Stonington from being disenfranchised.
Ben Proto, the chairman of the state Republican Party, said there were discussions taking place on Monday about who would have standing to file a lawsuit to force the state to count the unsigned ballots.