Secretary of State's Office: This new ward map didn't make the deadline.
Less than two weeks after the Board of Alders put new ward boundaries into effect, the state office in charge of elections has determined that the old ward lines must stay in place for the upcoming primary and general elections.
The Secretary of the State’s office handed down that election-defining legal opinion late Friday afternoon — raising questions about how exactly the Sept. 12 primary and Nov. 7 general election will unfold.
The recently-redistricted ward map, redrawn according to updated population data from the 2020 census and approved by the Board of Alders in May 2022, was originally slated to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024. On Aug. 7, alders unanimously voted to move up the ward map’s implementation date for the very purpose of conducting the upcoming primary and general elections according to new ward lines.
The Secretary of the State’s Office began looking into the legality of this change, and whether the new map can indeed be used in the upcoming primary and general elections, after an inquiry from the Independent for a previous story.
Late on Friday afternoon, Tara Chozet, a spokesperson for the Secretary of the State, offered a definitive take from the office, citing a state law (CGS§ 9 – 169) indicating that any changes to local district lines must be made at least 90 days before an election.
“In our view, changing the implementation date of the newly drawn ward boundaries from January 1, 2024 to August 7, 2023 would not make those new maps effective for the September 12 primary. So New Haven must operate under the previous voting district lines,” Chozet wrote in a statement. “The deadline to have made any changes to voting district lines for the September 12 primary would have been June 13.”
Although the new ward map was implemented more than 90 days before the Nov. 7 general election, Chozet said, “In our view, the voting district boundaries that are in use for the primary must be the same district boundaries for use in the general election.”
She added, “The ward map is not necessarily invalid in general, it just cannot be used in this primary and general election, for the previously stated reasons.”
Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans declined to comment for now, telling the Independent that she needed to have a conversation with the Secretary of the State’s office before commenting on this matter.
Majority Leader Richard Furlow said in a phone interview on Friday evening that the vote to change the ward map’s effective date on Aug. 7 was a “minor clarification” and not a substantial change.
He argued that the new ward map was always intended to be in effect by the time of the 2023 primary and general elections, and that this intention was “stated on the floor” at the time of the ward map’s original ratification.
The ordinance amendment that alders passed on May 23, 2022 finalizing the new ward map stated that the new lines “will take effect on January 1, 2024.”
The amendment that alders passed on Aug. 7, which stated a purpose of “amending the effective date from January 1, 2024 to August 7, 2023,” included the following “whereas” clause: “subsequently it has become clear through many means and conversations with the Registrars of Voters the best effective date would be August 7, 2023.”
Furlow said that alders would confer with the state to determine how to move forward.
Brilliant alderpeople