Oz Griebel on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
There’s the immediate-term Covid-19 health risk. And there’s the long-term democracy risk.
Oz Griebel invoked both risks to press his campaign to bring no-excuses mail-in voting to Connecticut elections — not just this year, but for good.
With much of the state on lockdown, this is precisely the time for officials to spend upcoming months on the hard groundwork to make it happen, Griebel argued during an appearance this week on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
“Let’s have some work done in advance while we have some time,” he said.
Griebel, a 2018 third-party gubernatorial candidate, is pressing the issue in his role as chair of the Connecticut chapter of the centrist Serve America Movement (SAM).
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has been trying for years to bring a no-excuses vote-by-mail system to Connecticut, which other states across the country (like Utah, Washington, Colorado, Oregon) have instituted in an effort to make casting ballots easier.
It would require an amendment to the state constitution, beginning with action by the state legislature, followed by a voter referendum.
Gov. Ned Lamont has issued an emergency order that basically allows people to vote absentee in the Aug. 11 primaries if they fear for their health due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But, in order to avoid violating the state constitution, he had to word it in a way that still requires citing a health reason (or plans to be out of town) to cast an absentee. And for now his order applies only to the primary.
Griebel argued for extending the order to the Nov. 3 general election as well.
“People should not have to choose between protecting their health or exercising their right to vote,” he argued.
Meanwhile, he proposed that the governor convene a Voter Participation Commission immediately to explore a constitutional change to allow mail-in voting. Comprised of Democrats and Republicans and elections experts, the commission would study what has and hasn’t worked in the states already allowing universal mail-in ballots. It would pay special attention to efforts to identify and prevent voter fraud. Then it would file a final report in time for the 2021 legislative session, so lawmakers could get right to work on holding hearings and passing a bill to take the issue to the voters, without wasting another year convening their own committee to study it.
Griebel’s group has launched a survey for Connecticut voters to weigh in on mail-in voting as well as other proposed election reforms, including non-partisan primaries and ranked-choice voting. Click here to take the survey.
SAM, which Griebel said has 1,700 email subscribers, will then quiz 2020 state legislative candidates on the questions, followed by endorsements.
Click on the video to watch the full episode of WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” featuring Oz Griebel.
Mail-In-Voting is the most unreliable system that we can think of. If enacted I will construct an internet web site as a Ballot Exchange that lists the bid and sell price and size for signed Blank Ballots. If not done on a public site it will surely exist on the Black Market by Democrats, Republicans, other persons or parties running for election or speculating on making money thru an exchange system.