As Voters Expand Ballot Access, GOP Lawmaker Favors Rollback of Voter Registration Option

by Hugh McQuaid

December 9 @ 11:30 am

Credit: Studioroman / Canva

Less than a month after many Connecticut residents utilized Election Day voter registration to participate in the 2024 election, a leading Republican on the legislature’s government administration committee has argued the policy should not exist.

“There should not be same-day registration,” Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, R-Wolcott, told the CT Examiner last month, “because there’s no way to verify that voter on the same day that they’re voting.”

Mastrofrancesco, the ranking House Republican on the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee, was interviewed as part of the Examiner’s coverage of Connecticut voters’ decision to expand voting options by approving a constitutional amendment to allow no-excuse absentee balloting.

A strong majority of voters approved that amendment on Election Day, giving state lawmakers the flexibility to approve more convenient options for Connecticut voters to make their voices heard in elections.

Rep. Matt Blumenthal, a Stamford Democrat who co-chairs the committee, told the Examiner that legislative Democrats would prioritize making those options available to Connecticut voters.

“For a long time our state constitution was an obstacle to making our elections run more smoothly and efficiently and eliminating redundancy, and now that we have removed that obstacle through the constitutional amendment, we’ll be able to pass absentee voting for all but also look to try to make the whole system work better,” Blumenthal said.

Mastrofrancesco, meanwhile, advocated for more restrictive voting policies and the rollback of Election Day voter registration, citing the policy’s widespread use in many towns.

Connecticut is one of 23 states to have adopted some form of Election Day registration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. These states range from reliably Democratic bastions like California to more conservative areas like Wyoming, where Republicans hold supermajorities in both legislative chambers.

Connecticut’s policy has been on the books for more than a decade, and was enacted in 2012 as part of a larger effort to modernize the state’s electoral system. That bill, An Act Concerning Voting Rights, also created a process by which residents could register to vote online.

As the Government Administration and Elections Committee was debating the bill back in 2012, then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the changes would give Connecticut residents a voice in the place where it mattered most — the voting booth.

“That means more of our residents will have a voice in how their tax dollars are spent, what kind of health care system we have, how their children are educated and so many other aspects of their lives,” the former governor said.