Can You Vote On School Budget If Not Registered

Topic:
SCHOOL DISTRICTS; BUDGETS; Schoolhouse FINANCE; ELECTIONS (GENERAL);
Location:
ELECTIONS;
Scope:
Connecticut laws/regulations;

OLR Research Report

The Connecticut General Associates

Part OF LEGISLATIVE Enquiry

December 5, 1994 94-R-0935

TO:

FROM: Mary Thousand. Janicki, Principal Analyst

RE: Combining Regional Schoolhouse District Budget Referendums With May Municipal El ections

Y'all want us to identify the statutory changes required to authorize towns to hold the plebiscite required to approve a regional school district budget on the same day at the same time as they concur the May election for municipal officers. Y'all also want us to discuss whatsoever bug involved in making such changes.

SUMMARY

5 towns in Connecticut hold municipal elections in May and vote on their regional school district budgets at the same time of the year. Combining the vote for municipal officials in those towns with the vote on regional school district budgets could eliminate trips to the polls for voters and reduce the costs to towns for conducting such events.

In odd-numbered years when municipal elections are held, the events could exist held together, merely the laws (1) restricting admission to polling places and (2) assuasive voters to use absentee ballots would have to be changed. Because property owners (either resident or nonresident) can vote on the school upkeep even if they are not registered voters, they would have to be authorized to enter the polling place on ballot day. They would accept to be allowed to (ane) use a carve up machine with a election label on the question only or utilize a paper ballot or (2) vote in a separate room in the polling identify.

The laws regulating the dates for press and distributing absentee ballots for both regular elections and referendums would have to be changed to allow those using absentee ballots for the election to vote on the question too. The board of education'southward deadline for determining the final upkeep effigy is critical since the dollar amount must appear on absentee ballots. Nether current police, absentee ballots for municipal elections are printed 31 days before the election. Absentee ballots for a referendum tin be printed within three weeks before the vote simply if they are available but four days in advance, they tin can be used but if the voter comes to the boondocks hall to utilize for one in person. In addition, the secretarial assistant of the land reviews the ballot label for a municipal ballot and could review the wording of the question for the referendum if information technology appears on the aforementioned ballot.

The consolidation would also require consideration of other issues such every bit (one) whether towns desire to require a vote on the upkeep at polling places for subsequent referendums if the initial upkeep question is rejected and (2) establishing the hours of voting in all the towns in a district. A less tangible gene to consider is whether the school budget ought to exist linked with candidates running for municipal offices and what the effects of that connection could exist on the campaigns for and confronting each.

APPLICABILITY

The following five towns hold their municipal elections in May and likewise belong to regional school districts: Andover, Barkhamsted, Bethany, Burlington, and Woodbridge.

RELEVANT LAWS

Towns that have May elections vote for municipal officials on the first Monday of May of the odd-numbered years (CGS � 9-164). Each regional lath of education presents its proposed upkeep at the district'due south annual meeting also on the showtime Mon in May (CGS � 10-51). The upkeep vote may be taken at that meeting by paper election; or, if at to the lowest degree 200 qualified voters sign and submit a petition or the lath decides to social club it, the vote must exist taken on voting machines the adjacent day.

The definition of "referendum" (CGS � 9-1 (n)) currently distinguishes between questions that appear on the election at an election and those that are submitted to a vote at a meeting (which is the example for a budget plebiscite). Combining the two would require a technical amendment to that section, allowing "voters" (that is, eligible property owners) to participate at a combined result.

ELIGIBLE VOTERS

If a school budget referendum were held at the same fourth dimension as a municipal election, the outcome of how the votes would be cast would accept to be resolved since (1) the upkeep question cannot now appear on the aforementioned ballot and (2) a group of people can vote at the referendum who are ineligible to vote in the election.

But registered voters are permitted to vote for municipal officials, just whatsoever citizen who is a belongings possessor and at least xviii years old is eligible to vote at a regional school commune coming together or plebiscite whether he lives in the boondocks or not. Considering the law prohibits anyone who is non a registered voter or polling identify official from being in any polling place (CGS � 9-236), it would not permit some of those people who are eligible to vote at the plebiscite to come inside 75 anxiety of the polling place used for the election of municipal officers. Even if they were authorized to enter the polling place, those people who are property owners only not registered voters could non utilise the same machines equally those voting in the boondocks election. It seems unlikely that the voters eligible to vote simply on the question would e'er be authorized to employ a machine set up to cast votes for municipal candidates.

During the 1994 session of the General Associates, the Government Administration and Elections Commission considered legislation that would have permitted a town's legislative trunk to provide for nonresident voters to vote at a cardinal location on referendum questions held in conjunction with a state or municipal election where residents could vote in the referendum in the voting booth (HB 5820). The intent of the proposal was to eliminate indistinguishable sets of polling places, thereby increasing voter participation and reducing the confusion and the expense of conducting the two events separately.

The commission modified the proposal and incorporated it into An Act Apropos Election Procedures (HB 5828). Section x of that bill authorized a vote at a plebiscite held in conjunction with an election to be taken by paper ballots. That provision was eliminated by House Amendment "A". Ane of the issues raised in connexion with this proposal (that resulted in the compromise to simply authorize paper ballots) was that the holding owners' votes on a question would be segregated if their votes were tallied on a dissever motorcar and, in a sense, the secrecy of their votes would be jeopardized.

Options

To attain the convenience of belongings a unmarried consequence, the law would accept to exist inverse either to:

1. allow all those eligible to vote at either the election or referendum into a single polling place to cast their ballots, a notion to which the Elections Partitioning of the Secretary of the State's office objects because it relaxes traditional restrictions on access to voting machines and materials;

two. let belongings owners who are not registered voters to vote in some other room at the polling place, which segregates their vote tally; or

three. require all voters to vote on the plebiscite question in another room at a separate machine with simply the budget question or on paper ballots, which requires those voting in both elections to expect in line and vote twice.

ABSENTEE BALLOTS

Absentee ballots for a municipal election must be issued 31 days earlier an ballot (CGS � 9-140 (f)). But absentee ballots for a referendum tin be used with 3 weeks' notice or less and if notice for it is just four days or less, the voter must appear in person at the town clerk'due south role and utilize for one (CGS � nine-369c). In the case of a question appearing on the ballot under the shorter notice, the boondocks clerk cannot mail absentee ballots. In order to address or reconcile the different procedures for using absentee ballots if the budget referendum were to be held in conjunction with the ballot for municipal offices:

one. the board of education would have to finalize the budget at least 31 days earlier the election in order for the question to appear when absentee ballots for the election are start mailed;

2. the board would take to finalize the budget at least three weeks before the election and those who had applied for a ballot between the 21st and 31st days earlier the election would receive a 2d election with simply the question; or

3. if the upkeep question were not finalized until 4 days before the election, the town clerk could distribute absentee ballots with the budget question only to those voters appearing in person; those who had practical before that fourth dimension for absentee ballots for the municipal ballot would non exist entitled to vote at the budget plebiscite (even if they were sent a carve up absentee ballot for the question, it is unlikely that it could exist returned by the finish of election twenty-four hours).

Options

Considerations necessary to address the event of using absentee ballots at a plebiscite held in conjunction with a municipal ballot include the following:

one. the appointment by which the lath must finalize its proposed budget and issue its notice of the question to the town clerk;

2. whether clerks ought to transport to applicants carve up absentee ballots--1 for the election and another with the question;

3. whether or not those voting by absentee ballot ought to exist able to vote on the budget question; and

iv. whether the dates for sending absentee ballots in general ought to exist adjusted.

THE BALLOT LABEL

The town clerk must file a sample election characterization with the secretarial assistant of the state at to the lowest degree 10 days before an election (CGS � ix-256). The upkeep referendum question would have to be finalized if it were to appear on the municipal election ballot. Both Attorney Mary Young of the Secretarial assistant of the State's Elections Division and Attorney Ron Harris of the Legal Diplomacy Division of the Department of Education agree that a budget effigy (the budget'south total dollar amount) must appear on the ballot and so that voters can know the budget they are asked to corroborate and to distinguish the question from possible subsequent referendums if the beginning upkeep is rejected.

The issue of the secretarial assistant's review and its timing would accept to be clarified, as well every bit the time for submission. Under electric current police, she has no jurisdiction over such questions. But to the extent that the question affects the advent of the municipal ballot ballot, the Elections Partitioning may have an interest in its placement and diction.

Options

To analyze some of the issues with respect to the election label, modifications to the law might include any of the post-obit:

ane. developing some style of identifying the election question that does not depend on a dollar figure;

2. eliminating the need for the secretary to review the entire ballot label, deleting whatever requirement that she approve the ballot question; or

3. changing the deadline for the review, making it closer to the election day to allow more time for the board to finalize the budget.

AUTOMATIC Upkeep REFERENDUMS

School budgets for regional districts exercise not automatically appear as a referendum question on voting machines under current constabulary. Either the board orders the ballot question or petitioners submit a valid request for information technology. A change to combine the plebiscite with the election would have to explicitly either (one) permit the choice to combine them using the culling procedures now in place or (2) crave that they be held together. If the question were held automatically in conjunction with municipal elections in those regional districts that happen to include a town or towns with May elections, all the towns in those districts would always have to vote for the budget at a referendum, distinguishing them from other regional schoolhouse districts.

SUBSEQUENT Upkeep REFERENDUMS

The proposal to combine the budget vote with May elections would affect just the initial budget referendum vote in merely odd-numbered years. When voters decline a upkeep proposal, the board of education has four weeks to phone call a commune coming together to consider an amended budget (PA 94-245). After rejecting a upkeep at a municipal election, would towns follow the procedures in current law for taking a vote on subsequent budget proposals? Would districts follow existing procedures in even-numbered years?

HOURS OF VOTING

Polling places must be open from 6 a.k. until eight p.k. for municipal elections (CGS � 9-174). Towns have the option to open the polls at either 6 a.m. or noon for voting on budget questions (CGS � 10-51, with reference to � 7-7). If some towns are allowed to consolidate their municipal elections with the school budget vote, should all the towns in the regional school district be required to open up the polls at 6 a.m.? Some regional school districts include towns that hold elections in May and towns that exercise not. For example, in Regional School District No. v Bethany and Woodbridge could concord its budget vote in conjunction with the May elections, just voters in the town of Orange would be because simply the budget. In Regional Schoolhouse Commune No. x, Burlington holds May elections, simply Harwinton does not. Each of the 5 towns that could consolidate the election and referendum belongs to a schoolhouse district that includes a boondocks or towns that hold their municipal elections in November and are voting merely on the budget question in May.

There is precedent for requiring different towns in a single district to conduct voting during the aforementioned fourth dimension period. Before the police required towns to all open the polls at 6 a.thousand. for a main, all towns in a district had to open up the polls at noon unless they all agreed to open before (PA 83-370).

CANDIDATE AND Upkeep CAMPAIGNS

Ron Harris, of the Education Department, raises the question of whether towns want to link the vote on the school budget with the campaigns to fill municipal offices. The board of education generates the budget which tin can become the subject of heated campaigns. Would the focus of attention exist inappropriately shifted in ane direction or another between candidates and the budget? What would be the result on other important campaign bug in town? Should voters consider the campaigns separately?

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