Sometimes I think elected Democrats are subjected to some sort of brain damage on their way to assuming office. This article at the New London Day sort of set me off:
As Connecticut municipalities bear the financial load of early voting, legislative leaders and state officials are split over whether the state should help fund the program and if failing to do so would put elections at risk.
With a presidential election looming, House Speaker Matthew Ritter indicated Thursday that cities and towns should not expect the legislature to fund early voting this session.
Ritter said that early voting “was not widely used” by Connecticut voters during the April presidential primary.
The speaker said the state should hold off on funding decisions until after the 2024 presidential election when more data on early voting participation will be available.
“If we find the municipalities are grossly underfunded and are unable to carry out their constitutional responsibilities, we’ll talk to them,” Ritter said.
In the meantime, Ritter suggested that cities and towns in need of funds pull from their share of municipal aid from the state.
Ritter said that for most municipalities, the costs associated with early voting are “probably” in the “tens of thousands of dollars … not hundreds.”
“Let’s just see where we are next year,” Ritter said. “No municipality’s going to go bankrupt.” (Emphasis added)
Okay, three points. First, I think it is widely agreed that making it easier to vote helps Democrats. Second, the State of Connecticut, meaning the legislature of which Ritter is a member, imposed the early voting requirement on the towns, so it seems only fair that the state should cover the costs of complying with the state’s mandate. Third, and this is the one that really boggles my mind, there is no way you can draw any legitimate conclusions from the recent primaries. Turnout, of course, was low, since there was no question about how each would turn out and both primaries were, not to put too fine a point on it, virtually meaningless. I worked as a poll worker for that primary, counting absentee and early votes, and from what I could see, there was a decent argument that early votes were a fair percentage of the total votes, though I would repeat that you can’t draw any legitimate conclusions from that data. One thing we do know is that turnout in November will likely be very high, unless Donald is in jail by that point and the polls have swung heavily to Biden.
Not only is Ritter wrong on the merits, but he gave the Republicans an opportunity to take a position against him that is actually on the right side of rationality:
House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora said he “strongly disagrees” with Ritter’s offer.
“It’s a risk to democracy,” Candelora said. “It’s allowing for the integrity of the system to break down without the proper funding.”
Candelora said he would like to see the legislature allocate at least another $3 million to assist municipalities with early voting expenses, but said that number could grow to upwards of $10 million.
Candelora suggested that the state should use its remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds to cover the bill.
Now don’t get me wrong. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that he’s taking that position only because it’s the opposite of what Ritter is saying, and that he’d oppose giving the towns a penny if Ritter was proposing exactly what he says he would support. But we’re in a sorry state when Democrats give the Republicans the ability to take a stand on an issue when they’re actually on the right side.
