Posted on August 5, 2020
HARTFORD – State Representative Holly Cheeseman (R-37) joined with House Republican Colleagues to call for an investigation into a flawed absentee ballot mailing process that failed to process over 20,000 ballots before critical deadlines for the August 11th primary election.
“The ability to vote safely and with confidence in the integrity of the process are absolutely essential to our form of government,” said Rep. Cheeseman. “I am disturbed by reports that over 20,000 ballots across the state were not sent out by the Secretary of the State. This failure could disenfranchise voter trying to safely participate in our August 11th primary election.”
Over 100 ballots from East Lyme and two dozen from Salem have not been issued. In an email sent to Town Clerks across the state on August 3rd, Association President Anna Posniak, explained that the mail vendor chosen by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill failed to mail about thousands of requested ballots. Town Clerks have been left to process the unsent ballots with days to go before the primary election.
Rep. Cheeseman noted, “After hearing from election officials in our district and across the state, it’s clear that this process has been mismanaged from the beginning. Ballots have been available since the 21st, but most weren’t sent until the 27th. In addition to late reporting issues, the process has been complicated by insufficient information on the outer envelopes of absentee ballots returned to clerks.”
House Republican Leaders Themis Klarides (R-144) and Vincent Candelora (R-86) called for a “full blown” investigation into the issue stating, “Many are at risk of being disenfranchised as a result of this bureaucratic mismanagement, whether intentional or otherwise. What this means for the general election in November is more than troubling.’’
Despite assurances to the general public that ballots were mailed in mid-July, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has reversed those assurances and now admitted that ballots were mailed around July 27th, thus setting up our town halls for receiving a last-minute onslaught of ballots to process just one week before the deadline.
“Our Town Clerks and local election officials are working diligently to make sure the remaining ballots issued and every vote counts. We must make sure that these failures never happen again,” concluded Rep. Cheeseman.