Voting & Elections

Our members and allies made history on Election Day, Tuesday, November 8th, 2022 at the forefront of a statewide movement of voters that amended our state constitution by a very strong 60% margin to allow for Early Voting!

Voters now need to ensure state legislators design an Early Voting system that meets the needs of all Connecticut voters.

Expanding democracy means protecting our elections—a lesson Americans learned all too well on January 6th, 2021. White supremacist insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol building in an attempt to overthrow democracy itself because their candidate was rejected by a large majority of American voters.

This antidemocratic spirit of obstruction is unfortunately nothing new and shows up every election cycle right here in Connecticut in ways large and small, unintentionally and intentionally. That is why nonpartisan volunteer polling place monitors deployed on Election Day outside one of our states polling places with the highest numbers of total voters and also of Black, Indigenous and other voters of color.

Election Protection Monitors took shifts for the primary and general elections and not only assisted voters but also found and reported obstacles to voting that disproportionately impact BIPOC voters.

In 2021 we expanded Automatic Voter Registration beyond the Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to other state agencies and helped restore the right to vote to citizens on parole. Stripping the right to vote from those on parole was an act of disenfranchisement that has disproportionately impacted communities of color in Connecticut for far too long. Also in 2021, after years of struggle, we were part of the movement that finally abolished the shameful practice of prison gerrymandering.