Expanding Resources to Educate Voters and Safeguard Voting Process
/by Stephanie Thomas
Over the last few years, the Office of the Secretary of the State has faced unprecedented challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic, national political trends, and animus towards
government institutions, in addition to the lack of new federal funding from the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) have created both unfunded expenses and an inability to continue passing along grants to municipalities to help defray their election administration costs.
The Governor’s budget includes several additions that mitigate the challenges our office faces and would greatly benefit the residents of our state. The budget supports modernizing the technology that supports Connecticut’s elections. Included are appropriations to replace the Centralized Voter Registration System (CVRS) with a reliable and user‐friendly interface. This will come as a welcomed improvement to all of the municipal officials, such as registrars of voters and town clerks, who rely on the system to complete their work.
The Governor’s budget proposal also supports funding for the additional full-time Staff Attorney assigned to process FOIA requests to alleviate the pressure on our stretched thin legal staff. Over the last several years, our office has seen a significant increase in FOIA requests, amounting to a 92% increase in volume between 2018 and 2022. These public records requests are time consuming and have taken legal staff away from other critical duties.
The proposal also enables the continuation of voters of all abilities to cast a ballot easily and privately by appropriating funds to maintain the Accessible Voter Ballot Marking System, as required by federal law. In past years, our office utilized excess federal funding to comply with the accessibility recommendations of the Department of Justice, but that funding no longer exists today.
Additionally, the Governor’s budget proposal includes inflationary adjustments for elections related printing and technology expenses, allowing our office to continue providing the same degree of services even as costs rise. I would like to express my gratitude to the Governor and his staff at the Office of Policy and Management for recognizing the evolving needs of our office in their budget proposal for this biennium. It is my hope that you too will recognize the importance of these items in your budget and consider including three other items.
First, I am asking you to again appropriate $2 million each year for the upcoming biennium, provided through carryforward funds, so our office can conduct a robust public information program to fulfill one of the core missions of our agency. You will note in the Governor’s budget book that the first requirement of our agency is “To educate and inform the public of services, programs and responsibilities of the office, and to advocate for issues, policies and programs which promote a healthy democracy and an active, engaged citizenry…” These funds would allow my office to do just that.
Beginning in 2020 and continuing through last year, our office was able to accomplish positive election experiences for Connecticut voters through a comprehensive public information campaign to explain how Connecticut elections are run, and what changes have gone into effect since they last voted. These campaigns allow us to speak directly to voters regarding the deadlines and mechanics of voting.
Although difficult to demonstrate the success of these programs, a look at the absentee ballot rejection rate before and after voters were provided with adequate information on the mechanics of voting is illustrative. In 2018, prior to the dissemination of any widespread instructional information about the proper way to complete the ballot envelope, the absentee ballot rejection rate was around 2%. In both the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, with the help of a robust public information push, these rates fell to around 1%, even with a significant increase in absentee ballot usage by voters.
I’ve also attached an executive summary of the results of last year’s public information campaign that utilized the internet, analog and streaming radio, mobile gaming, and cable and network television. It is critical that we continue reaching voters through public information campaigns over the next two years given the multitude of electoral changes coming down the pike.
Second, I am requesting you appropriate $40,000 to allow us to train and reclassify existing employees to the level of a licensing analyst within our business services division. These individuals would join a team tasked with investigating and levying fees against businesses that are operating in Connecticut without being properly registered.
Through more proactive and aggressive fee‐collecting practices over the past few years, our office has been able to increase revenues from $29.8 million in Fiscal Year 2018 to more than $48 million in Fiscal Year 2022, which benefit the General Fund. An addition to the foreign investigations team would not only help protect Connecticut consumers by further cracking down on illegally operating businesses, but we estimate it will generate more than $10 million in additional increased revenue for the state.
And lastly, I am requesting the appropriation of $93,000 to hire a full‐time Associate Fiscal Administrative Officer within my Management and Support Services team. As our office has doubled in revenue over the past decade, our financial management needs have changed. It is no longer sufficient for the division director to be the sole professional level staff member in the unit. To ensure proper workload management as well as succession planning for the future, our office requires an additional staff member with accounting experience and qualifications, which the existing clerical staff do not possess.
Despite the challenges we face, our office, which has been flat funded from the General Fund for the past two biennium, has continued to do more with less. Any minimal funding that has lapsed in past years has been due to administrative hold‐ups or temporarily unfilled positions within the office. With these modest budget requests, we are committed to continue operating under conservative means without impacting any of the services we provide to the public.
Stephanie Thomas was elected Connecticut Secretary of the State in November 2022 and took office in January. She previously served as a State Representative from Norwalk. This testimony was provided to legislature’s Appropriations Committee General Government Subcommittee on February 16, 2023, as part of the legislature’s review of the state budget proposed by Governor Lamont for the upcoming biennium.
