Good News: There have been more than 76,000 new registrations since the start of the year and around half of those are people under 30.
Bad News: In Connecticut, 30% of eligible voters are unregistered. (Unregistered or unaffiliated voters have until Monday to register with a party if they want to participate in the presidential primaries.
Voter suppression isn’t a problem in Connecticut, right?
The U.S. Department of Justice is planning to sue Connecticut for not complying with a section of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, if it doesn’t fix the problem. Applications for a Connecticut driver’s license or non-driver ID generally are supposed to, but don’t serve as applications for voter registration, and DMV change of address forms don’t work for voter registration change if the applicant is moving between two towns.
Automatically registering Connecticut voters when they do business with the Department of Motor Vehicles could add 400,000 voters in Connecticut.
Nationally and in Connecticut, young voters, ex-offenders, the unemployed and renters are the least likely to engage in electora
l politics. Another proposal being considered in Connecticut and many states is restoring voting rights for convicted felons.