"SEN. SLOSSBERG:
Thank you, Mr. President. I move acceptance
of the Joint Committee's Favorable Report and passage of the bill.
THE CHAIR:
Acting on approval of the bill, will you
remark further, Ma'am?
SEN. SLOSSBERG:
Yes, thank you, Mr. President, the underlying
bill here regards Election Day registration and the Clerk has in his possession
LCO 8441, and I would ask that he call it and I seek leave to summarize.
THE CHAIR:
Mr. Clerk.
THE CLERK:
LCO 8441, which will be designated as Senate
Amendment Schedule "A". It is offered by Senator Slossberg of the 14th
District.
THE CHAIR:
Senator Slossberg.
SEN. SLOSSBERG:
Thank you, Mr. President. I move adoption.
THE CHAIR:
Please proceed.
SEN. SLOSSBERG:
This bill, this amendment before us deals
with Election Day registration and what it does is gives us an opportunity for
the first time to actually collect data on whether Election Day registration
does all the things that it is purported to do.
The bill in front of us limits Election Day
registration to the 2008 Presidential Preference primary. It allows
unaffiliated voters to register at a major party on primary day and vote in a
primary. A voter would still be subject to a three-month waiting period for
transferring from one major party to another.
It requires the primary day registration
occur in a registrar's office in a multi-town district or in either the
registrar's office or in a polling place at a single district town, if the
registrars have all the necessary supplies for voter registration in the
polling place.
The applicant would appear in the prescribed
place to register, they would fill out an application and the registrar would
check the statewide centralized voter list to check for duplicate registration.
At that time, the applicant will be asked to
prove identity and residency. This can come in the form of United States
Passport, a military I. D. card, a current and valid photo identification, or a
utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or government document
that shows the name and the address of the applicant.
For students the bill makes special
accommodations and they can use a
They will also check to make sure they are
not registered in any other municipality, and if it is determined that they
were previously registered in another town, they will be contacting the other
municipality.
The voter will fill out the ballot at that
same location, so it's one-stop shopping, place it in a depository envelope
with their name on it and then leave the ballot with the registrar of voters.
At that time, the voted ballots will be
delivered for counting to the polls or to central counting throughout the day,
just as our absentee ballots are delivered. Once the ballots get to their
location to be counted, the ballots and the names are compared to the list
created by the registrars to ensure that only proper ballots have been
delivered.
The ballots are then opened and counted in
the same manner as our absentee ballots, to ensure proper procedure and to
protect identity. After the election, registrars will send a confirmation
letter to the residential address provided by the voter.
If such letter is returned as undeliverable
by the U. S. Post Office, the registrars would refer the matter to Elections
Enforcement for additional investigation. After the primary day registration,
this amendment creates a statewide demonstration in 2008.
The Secretary of State would conduct a survey
of cost, turnout, any allegations of fraud, staffing, and party enrollment
statistics, and forward such information to the GAE Committee within one month
following the primary. The rest of this bill is mostly technical.
It updates the requirements regarding
preparing voter lists to comply with current technology, which now make
production of such lists readily available, and it provides those current lists
to be available on demand. It updates the statutes regarding the process of
voting by persons with a disability.
And there are additional technical updates to
deal with our new Mark Sense system, and other technical changes to a lot of
registrars to properly administer elections. Election day registration, as many
of you I'm sure know, deals with the problem that we have in our country of low
voter turnout.
Only 51% of the population voted in the 2000
Presidential election. The voter registration composed barriers to voter
participation in our Democracy, and as we know, the fundamental building block
of our Democracy is our right to vote.
Currently, seven states have Election Day
registration in existence, and these states have consistently achieved a higher
voter turnout that is 8% to 15% better than the national average. One of the
great things about Election Day registration and it deals with the way we do
our campaigns that we conduct our campaigns now.
So many people are finding late interest in
the campaign. As the evening is late, and it's 11: 30 and there's a lot more to
say about Election Day registration, though. I did just want to make one or two
minor points, with regard to why we're doing this on a primary date.
We've heard a lot of issues with regard to
whether we shouldn't be. This gives us the perfect opportunity to test out all
of the theories. Does it increase voter turnout, is there a problem with voter
fraud, or does this really work, and in a way that doesn't affect the outcome
of an election.
It's a Presidential Preference primary. All
it does is register our preferences. It's Democrats against Democrats,
Republicans against Republicans, under current law an individual can register
to vote and an unaffiliated voter can enroll in a party up until noon preceding
the day of the primary.
So basically all we are doing is extending
the time to register by 18 hours. This will give us an opportunity to either
identify and address any problems and give us a real chance to know what is
going on.
In addition, with regard to the Presidential
primary, we know that we're talking about super-duper Tuesday. If we do this
demonstration project, it's also a great way for
I think we will already have, but I think it
would also give us a great opportunity to test out this theory. In summary then
I would ask that the Chamber support this opportunity to find out what the
benefits are of Election Day registration. Thank you, Mr. President."
_____________________________________________________________________________
From the transcript of the
Connecticut Senate, September 20, 2007 - debate on SB 1600, a bill to reduce corruption in awarding state contracts:
"Senate Bill Number 1600, AN ACT CONCERNING CLEAN
CONTRACTING STANDARDS
. . .
Emergency Certified Bill 1600, An Act
Concerning Clean Contracting Standards. The bill is accompanied by Emergency
Certification, signed Donald E. Williams, Jr. , President Pro Tempore of the
Senate, James A. Amann, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
THE CHAIR:
Senator Slossberg.
SEN. SLOSSBERG:
Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon.
THE CHAIR:
Good afternoon.
SEN. SLOSSBERG:
I move passage of the bill.
THE CHAIR:
On passage of the bill, will you remark?
SEN. SLOSSBERG:
Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, this
legislation is the same legislation as we passed in June of this year, with
some minor technical changes. We passed this by a 34-2 vote.
Unfortunately, as it was the last day of
session, the House ran out of time to take it up. So here again we are today to
hopefully pass the clean contracting legislation.
We all know the history of contracting in our
state, that we've had issues with contracting, some of them, some of those
problems that continue today.
This bill protects our public interests by
making state contracting open, transparent, accountable, and uniform. And I
would just let people know that this is a compromised document.
Our unions, our nonprofits, the existing
standards board have all participated in a process of long negotiations with
the Executive Branch, and our other Legislators as well, and Governor Rell. And
I would just ask that, hopefully, today is the day that
. . .
SEN. LOONEY:
Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, the
need for contracting reform has been part of the unfinished business of the
state since the unfortunate time of the scandal involving Governor Rowland.
This bill, at long last, gives us the kind of
change and structural reform that we believe is necessary. The agreement was
reached at the end of the session. It's unfortunate that, in the crunch of the
last night, the House did not have an opportunity to make it part of the work
of the regular session.
But I want to commend Senator Slossberg for
her work throughout the regular session, and in the time since then, for being
so purposeful and so capable and so strategic in dealing with all of the
competing interests that needed to be reconciled in one way or another to make
this a workable bill, which it is.
She and all the others who put in so much
time on this deserve our commendation. Thank you, Mr. President.
THE CHAIR:
Thank you, Senator Looney. Will you remark?
Senator Williams.
SEN. WILLIAMS:
Thank you, Mr. President. I too rise to
support the bill. I'd like to thank Senator Slossberg for her hard work on
this. It's been a tremendous amount of hard work, Senator Slossberg, and even
right up through today.
You know, without recounting the history of
this bill, here's hoping the fifth time is the charm. But on a serious note, we
know that this is vitally important to the State of
THE CHAIR:
Thank you, Senator Williams. Will you remark?
Will you remark further on the bill? If not, Mr. Clerk, will you please call
the roll. The machine will be open.
THE CLERK:
An immediate roll call has been ordered in
the Senate. Will all Senators please return to the Chamber.
An immediate roll call has been ordered in
the Senate. Will all Senators please return to the Chamber.
THE CHAIR:
Have all Senators voted? Have all Senators
voted? If all Senators have voted, the machine will be locked and the Clerk
will call the tally.
THE CLERK:
Motion is on passage of Emergency Certified
Bill 1600.
Total number voting, 35; necessary for
passage, 18. Those voting “yea”, 33; those voting “nay”, 2. Those absent and
not voting, 1.
THE CHAIR: