Connecticut’s enactment of public financing of state elections in 2010 made it a national leader in election law reform. But in recent years the state has failed to modernize its cumbersome election apparatus causing it to lose ground to other states in making it easier for our residents both to register to vote and to cast a ballot on Election Day.

As a result, the state’s election apparatus during the 2016 statewide election was unable to handle the crush of actual and potential new voters at the polls. The General Assembly in 2019 debated but failed to enact effective remedies for these problems. The shocking sight of massive election-night lines of new registrants blocked from voting is expected to occur again during the upcoming 2020 presidential election unless our elected representatives make a more serious effort now to repair the operating system of our state’s democracy.