Susan Johnson

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas joined me on “Let’s Talk About It” to provide a background on her career, her new role in our government, and new early voting laws. Secretary Thomas owned a fundraising consulting company that worked with nonprofits for 10 years before serving as the state representative for the 143rd district in Fairfield Country. In January 2023, Stephanie Thomas was sworn in as the new Secretary of the State.

Secretary Thomas explained that she wanted to run for this office after previous attempts to pass an early voting bill did not pass. While running for Secretary of the State, she put 13,000 miles on her car to answer questions from constituents all over the state about voting.

During the 2023 legislative session, the Connecticut General Assembly passed House Bill 5004, which paves the way for early voting next year. Here’s what you need to know:

• There will be four days of early voting for the presidential preference primary in April '24
• Most primaries, including the one in August ’24, will have seven days of early voting
• The general election in November ’24 will have fourteen early voting days

Learn More About Early Voting

Plans are in the works to get new voting equipment. The bonding committee has approved this, but it still needs a vote. If this issue does not make its way on the agenda soon, Secretary Thomas says her office will not have enough time to upgrade the equipment for the general election in November 2024. She made it clear that any new voting equipment will not be connected to the internet, which has always been the case in Connecticut.
 
Most communities will hold early voting at town halls because those facilities have access to the central voter registration system. According to Secretary Thomas, each municipality will receive $10,500 regardless of their size to handle early voting next year. Thomas is hopeful legislators will provide more funding in the next legislative session for fiscal year 2025.

Finally, we also talked about no-excuse absentee voting. The issue will go to a public referendum on the 2024 general election ballot. If it passes, registered voters will get to vote by absentee ballot if they are unable to appear at their polling station on the day of an election, primary, or referendum because:

• They are out of town
• They are sick or physically hurt
• Their religion forbids secular activity on election day
• They are in active service in the U.S. Armed Forces
• They are election workers and their duties keep them away during voting hours

To learn more about our elections, please click on the video below to listen to the entire show!

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas digs deeper into her career, early voting, and no-excuse absentee ballots.