Republicans Press For One-Year Mandatory Minimum For Election Fraud

by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie \

The Government Administration and Elections Committee heard testimony Wednesday on a bill that seeks to impose stricter penalties for election fraud, including increasing the minimum sentence to at least one year in prison.
The crimes covered by the bill include trying to determine how voters cast their ballot, conditioning work opportunities on voting outcomes, issuing threats or bribes to coerce certain particular voting behavior, and making false statements regarding absentee ballots.

“We applaud the sentiment of the bill, and agree that more must be put in place in terms of stringent deterrence against election crimes. But we oppose the bill as written for certain reasons,” said Kristin Sullivan, director of Elections for the Office of the Secretary of State. “First, it’s unclear if the proposed increased penalties for offenses is supported by any data that suggests the change would have a proportionate deterrent effect. We are also concerned about the mandatory minimum sentence times in the bill. Those mandatory minimum prison times for election workers and first time offenders may have a negative effect in recruiting election workers at a time when we really need them.”
Sullivan expressed concern that the mandatory minimum would tie a judge’s hands when it came time to decide the punishment for election crimes.
“Ignorance of the law is certainly not a sufficient excuse for breaking it, it does present a mitigating factor for a judge to consider when levying penalties,” she said.

There has been some absentee ballot fraud over the past two decades, but none of it has ever resulted in jail time.
“It’s interesting to note that despite the fact there’s been several dozen people convicted of election fraud over the past few decades, no one has ever served any jail time for it,” said Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott.
Connecticut Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas is concerned with how the bill is worded.

“I’ve had conversations with many members of the committee about the need for election crimes in particular to have swift justice. But when we talk about mandatory sentencing, some of the language in the bill as written is overly broad.and it made no allowances for non-willful breaking of election law,” Thomas said. “We have seen instances where the lack of knowledge about Title 9 [the law covering elections] from the voter perspective, where they didn’t know they were breaking the law. The best example is, who can return your absentee ballot? They don’t know that by handing it off to someone else to drop off for them, that’s breaking Title 9.”
Rep. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton, discussed how important it is for the public to have confidence in the electoral process.
“Election crimes harm each and every one of us, giving some an impactful and unfair gain over others and undermining the legitimacy of the election itself. We have had local elections and state legislative races determined by only one vote, with recent state house and senate races decided by only a dozen or two votes. Every vote counts. And every election crime disenfranchises us all,” he wrote in submitted testimony, urging the committee to support the bill.

Election fraud has been a constant topic of conversation among politicians in recent years. Former president Donald Trump alleged widespread election fraud on numerous occasions, even in 2016 when he won the presidency through the Electoral College while losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. 
The issue hit close to home last fall in Bridgeport when city workers and Ganim campaign volunteers were caught on camera delivering what appeared to be absentee ballots to an absentee ballot box in the early morning hours preceding the city’s Democratic Primary. The allegations were substantial enough that the court ordered a redo of the primary. The events in Bridgeport were referenced several times during the discussion about the bill.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle agreed that the issue of election fraud needs to be addressed, and pledged to continue looking at the issue.

“I think this bill is evidence of our effort to try and have a bipartisan conversation,” said Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Danielson, co-chair of the committee. “The bill was put forward by the ranking members of our committee and we’re giving it a public hearing today because we’re trying to listen to as many voices as possible when advancing reforms for elections.”