(Journal Inquirer) Sen. McLachlan’s Proposal Bars Schools from Using Notification Systems for Budget Votes

From the Manchester Journal Inquirer, June 8, 2013

The “get out the vote” campaign is about to get a little less automated.

After fielding complaints that the Windsor school system had been using its automated notification system to try to get parents to participate in budget referendums, state lawmakers stepped in.

The House of Representatives and the Senate voted this week to bar school systems starting July 1 from using their automated notification systems to remind residents about an upcoming vote.

The language was part of a 500-page bill that passed both chambers with little debate on Wednesday, the final day of the General Assembly session. The bill awaits the signature of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who’s expected to sign it.

The measure would allow only the mayor or first selectman of a town to send messages about a vote to all residents — and those messages would be limited to “reminding voters of the time, place, and subject matter of an upcoming referendum,” Sen. Michael McLachlan, a Republican from Danbury who proposed the measure, said.

It’s simply “inappropriate for public resources to be used” to send unsolicited messages to a select group of voters, such as parents, McLachlan said in a statement.

The measure was spurred by a debate in Windsor over School Superintendent Jeffrey Villar’s use of the school system’s parental notification system to send messages ahead of a May 14 budget referendum, McLachlan said.

Voters rejected that budget, which included a $1.4 million hike for schools and a $1 million increase in town spending. Voters then rejected a second proposal that would have increased spending about $1.9 million overall.

Windsor Republican Town Chairman Ronald Eleveld filed a complaint with the State Elections Enforcement Commission, saying Villar’s actions violated election law.

“The action of the superintendent was to target a small group of voters and possibly disenfranchise all other voters not notified,” Eleveld wrote in the complaint.

Villar and Thomas Mooney, the Windsor Board of Education’s lawyer, said they believed the complaint was without merit because the school system’s message didn’t advocate for the success or failure of the budget. School board President Doreen Richardson added that the system has been used to send similar messages during previous referendums.

But McLachlan noted that only certain residents received the message.

“If school systems can send these types of targeted messages to only public school parents, what would stop similar messages from being sent to only public safety personnel, or only property owners?” he asked.

Existing law, McLachlan added, “does not address the modern use of automated phone and email messages,” an issue he said the measures the legislature passed this week will address.

Eleveld said he was pleased to hear that legislators had addressed the issue.

“It became clear that this was becoming a problem across the state, and it was not a partisan issue,” he said in a release. “It didn’t matter if the town was Democrat or Republican, the potential for misuse was there regardless.”