Sen. Sampson Statement on 2022 Ballot Question for Constitutional Amendment, Provision of Early Voting

State Sen. Rob Sampson issued the following statement in response to the process behind the addition of a question on statewide ballots for the 2022 elections regarding a constitutional amendment allowing early voting:

“I am hopeful that there will be a healthy public discussion on the merits of the constitutional amendment. My issue with the legislation remains the lack of detail voters will be given about what they are really voting on. It’s like asking someone if they want a free lunch and not telling them what the lunch is. People deserve to know if it will be two days or 100 days of early voting. They deserve to know what ballot security measures will be in place, how and when the votes will be counted, and finally, how much it will cost since more days of voting will require local property tax increases to pay for it.

“The question fails to address all of this. Members of the legislature had the opportunity to truly understand what they were voting on before casting a vote. The people of Connecticut deserve the same detail.  Unfortunately, my attempts to provide that detail in the question and the explanatory text provided at polling locations were blocked by majority Democrats.

“Over the last several years, Democrats have passed numerous election-related measures, and in every case, they have failed to be transparent with the voting public.  The narrative is that they are expanding access to elections, which is something everyone favors.  What they don’t tell you is that they are simultaneously shredding security measures and damaging the overall integrity of our election process.

“I can tell you as someone who has intimate knowledge of our election laws and process, people are right to question the recent changes.”