Sec’y State Hopefuls Split On Voting Rules

Would letting people cast ballots earlier make the voting process easier? Or harder?

The two major-party candidates vying to become the state’s top elections official split on that issue — and on broader issues of how voting should work.

Democratic candidate Stephanie Thomas and Republican Dominic Rapini offered those divergent views, which mirror those of their parties’ candidates in other states this election season, during separate interviews on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

The early-voting issue is relevant this year: Voters will weigh in on Nov. 8 on a separate ballot referendum question that would instruct the legislature to create a system for voters in future elections to cast ballots in person in days leading up to Election Day, rather than just on Election Day.

Both candidates promised to submit proposed legislation to carry out the voters’ wishes if they decide in favor of early voting.

Until then, Rapini is advocating that voters shoot down the idea.

He offered both practical and philosophical objections. He called a state-mandated extended voting program an ​“unfunded mandate” for budget-strapped local elections officials. He spoke of the difficulty local registrars of voters are encountering hiring enough people to work the polls on Election Day.

Given ​“how hard it is to get people to work one day — imagine 30 days,” he said.

Philosophically, Rapini argued that the current system works well as it is without needing change. He argued that allowing the campaign season to run longer until people cast in-person ballots allows more time for voters to focus on issues rather than simply make ​“tribal” selections.

Thomas is campaigning in favor of the referendum question. She said many people who work two jobs or encounter sudden family crises on Election Day deserve more of an opportunity to cast ballots, the way voters have in other states. 

Thomas said she will propose a three-to-five-day early election period (she hasn’t narrowed it down beyond that) rather than the 30 invoked by Rapini. She added that her proposed legislation would include state dollars for running municipal elections. She argued that the secretary of the state’s budget needs to be increased, in part by redirecting from the general fund money that the office brings in.

“We can’t push that off on the towns,” she said.

In their interviews, Rapini and Thomas promised to be even-handed, apolitical secretaries of state focused on improving the nuts and bolts of the election system and the state’s commercial database, which the office also oversees. They spoke of their experience with elections: Thomas, a Norwalk state representative, sits on the legislature’s Government & Elections Administration Committee. Rapini has worked for 26 years in Apple’s Consumer Electronics Division.

Both spoke of the need to replace the state’s 20-year-old tabulators, which regularly break down. Rapini added that in addition to choosing and rolling out a new system, he would focus on training people to use it and on a ​“3.0” plan for what system would succeed the new one, say, eight years down the road when it too becomes obsolete. 

Rapini spoke as well about updating the state commercial database to be more useful, including for people looking to make business-to-business connections. His ideas include creating more opportunities for businesses to post more information on the site, including keywords about the fields they’re in. That way, for instance, someone would have an easier timing connecting with potential partners in the aerospace industry, for instance.

Thomas spoke of boosting ​“civic education” through the office, informing people how elections work and how to participate through both online and in public gatherings. She promised to ​“beef up” the five-year-old civic ambassador program.

Thomas Pressed On RCV

Thomas responded to criticism she has received from the left for not embracing ranked-choice voting (RCV). Adopted by two states and dozens of municipalities across the country, RCV allows voters to choose more than one candidate for an office; they rank their picks in order of preference. In the counting process, if no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, the last-place candidate is eliminated in the first round, and their voters’ second choices get their votes for the second round of counting. That continues until a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote. (Click here to read more about that.)

The argument for RCV: It promotes an alternative to ​“lesser of two evils” ​“winner take-it-all” campaigns based on personal attacks rather than issues. Candidates would be more reluctant to attack an opponent whose supporters they may need to attract as second-choice voters. And voters themselves could select long-shot candidates they prefer as first choices — and therefore have their views counted in an election — without worrying about helping to elect their least-favored candidate, because their ​“lesser of two evils” vote will still count in subsequent rounds. 

The third candidate in this year’s secretary of the state race, Cynthia Jennings of the Independent Party, puts support of RCV at the center of her platform. (Click here to read and watch a previous interview with her about her campaign.)

Thomas said she would not pursue legislative approval of RCV or initiate a process toward that goal if elected.

She argued that more pressing matters, like the new tabulators and an early-elections plan, await her.

“I’ve taken a lot of flak over ranked-choice voting. People were tweeting at me: ​‘Stephanie is against us!’ I never said I was against it. I’m pragmatic,” Thomas said.

“Part of being a responsible leader and manager is managing limited time and resources. That’s just a fact of the job. I understand that in the political arena there is often a temptation for cute sound bites. I am not interested in politics. I’m interested in governance. Given where we are in Connecticut, given the reality of our infrastructure and the timeline it would take to buy new tabulator machines that would even be capable of implementing RCV, it is not something that would be a priority in the next three, four years, given time, resources and budget.”

Rapini outright opposed RCV. He called it a ​“Ponzi scheme,” that it requires a ​“user’s manual” for voters to figure out, and that it runs against the election system’s ​“core value [that] every voter gets one vote,” not 10.

Rapini Pressed On Jan. 6 Tweets

Rapini, meanwhile, has been pushed to explain dozens of tweets he posted beginning with Jan. 6, 2021 and in following months. He reposted tweets from Donald Trump and from Trump-friendly outlets like the Epoch Times questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, including repeated questions about Dominion voting machines.

On ​“Dateline,” Rapini was asked who won the 2020 presidential election.

“Without a doubt Joe Biden. He won the election,” Rapini responded. ​“I asked questions about the election. I studied it. I said, ​‘You know what? He won.’ From that point on I’ve been focused on Connecticut. I know there are things we can do better … to take elections to the next level.”

Stephanie Thomas accused Rapini of walking back previous statements because they’re unpopular among the majority of Connecticut voters.

For instance, on Jan. 6, 2021, as a pro-Trump rally was followed by the violent storming of the Capitol in an attempt to stop the counting of the Electoral College vote, Rapini tweeted: ​“Patriots by the thousands in DC fighting for what is right. Our Democracy demands that we have free and fair elections and this election has been a travesty.”

He was asked his take on that tweet Thursday on ​“Dateline.”

“It was a rally, right? Of Americans. Just like we have rallies throughout the country on all different things,” Rapini responded. ​“I applaud anybody who’s going to rally. I didn’t know anything about what was happening at the Capitol. That was a travesty, what happened at the Capitol later that day. I asked questions of the Secretary of the State’s office: Do we have Dominion machines here?”

Rapini added that he supports Connecticut’s paper ballot-backed method for counting the vote.

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