Sen. Gary Winfield, left, listens to Sen. Jorge Cabrera during a recess in the Senate’s debate on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, at the state Capitol in Hartford. Credit: Doug Hardy / CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — A bill that would make technical changes to Connecticut’s election laws became the source of bipartisan concern due to a change in language that critics say could reduce the standard of evidence for election complaints too far.
Senate Bill 1517 makes several changes to state election law, including federal rulings regarding independent expenditure political committees, rules regarding the distribution of surplus funds by candidate committees participating in the Citizen’s Election Program, and other technical changes.
However, one change caught the attention of several members. Section 20 of the bill is designed to give the State Elections Enforcement Committee (SEEC) additional time to adjudicate complaints of election malfeasance, as the statute of limitations for those complaints is only a year.
Under the new language in the bill, the SEEC would be allowed to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether “reason to believe or no reason to believe exists” for alleged violations of election law. The preliminary investigation would not count against the statute of limitation, but the new standard based on “reason to believe” replaces language that required “probable cause” in a preliminary finding.
“We have no standard in this state, we never have, which is ‘reason to believe or no reason to believe,’” said Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford. “It’s probable cause all the way back to common law. I just don’t see any reason to do this, because you could be gutting the ability of the SEEC to bring or to prove a case when we have no standard, or it could be expanding the standard and saying that it doesn’t have to be probable cause because we have this very loose undefined standard that opens up the floodgates.”
Fishbein was further concerned that lowering the standard for election-related offenses would ultimately violate the right to due process, as the lowered standard would not meet the current requirements for an arrest or a warrant, and other pieces of evidence that are required under the current standard of evidence would no longer be required, such as affidavits.
“I take your concerns very seriously,” Winfield said. “I’m not sure what the language of ‘reason to believe’ means either. I had a conversation with the chairs of the [Government Administration and Elections] committee to ask that very question, and quite frankly, the answer wasn’t satisfying.”
Winfield said that the language was explained to him as a request made to the GAE committee. While he said that he would vote to advance the bill out of committee, if the language remained unchanged during floor debate he indicated he wouldn’t vote for the bill at that time.
FILE PHOTO: Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, co-chair of the General Assembly’s Reproductive Rights Caucus, speaks to reporters during a news conference Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. Credit: Coral Aponte / CTNewsJunkie
Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, also serves as the co-chair of the GAE committee and explained the thought process behind the change in language.
“The point of this provision is an attempt at compromise to allow the SEEC to continue to investigate claims for which there is some basis beyond the one-year statute, which currently they have to dismiss them,” he said. “And so the point of this provision as requested by the SEEC would be for them to make a preliminary evidentiary determination that there is some evidence to go forward on, akin to the requirement that some evidence of negligence be provided for a medical malpractice case, without making the full probable cause of termination that the SEEC generally makes for these proceedings under a formal hearing.”
FILE PHOTO: Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, speaks in opposition to a bill that would require movie theaters to advertise actual film start times during a public hearing before the General Law Committee meeting at the Connecticut State Capitol on Feb. 19, 2025. Credit: Mia Palazzo / CTNewsJunkie
Blumenthal said that the provision of the bill remains a work in progress and that the chairs of the GAE committee are committed to addressing the concerns raised going forward.
“Certainly there must be some standard,” said Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield. “It can’t be so amorphous that the bar is so low that, as Rep. Fishbein pointed out, there’s no due process. One of the things that we do as legislators is we have to craft our language precisely, such that it offers guidance to those that want to follow the law, and it is not so amorphous or nondescript such that a citizen that wants to comply would have no ability to do so.”
The committee ultimately advanced the bill to the Senate on a 29-11 vote with one absent or not voting.