Back in March, Real Hartford reported that Hartford voters were beginning to file complaints after noticing that not all write-in votes appeared to be counted. Later that month, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) voted to authorize an investigation into these complaints.
Hartford was not the only municipality in Connecticut where voters complained about officials’ handling of the November 2012 election, but it is the only one of the six that still has not complied with the SEEC’s requests for information on votes allegedly not counted, say individuals close to the investigation.
Richard Nelson, one of the Hartford voters who filed a complaint, said “since this is the second known time that legitimate votes were not counted in elections in Hartford, nothing short of the removal of these registrars would be sufficient.”
He said that because this is not the first trouble they have had in recent years, he hopes that the HROV gets “a bit more than a tap on their fingers” from the SEEC.
According to someone close to the investigation, the SEEC plans to fine the Hartford Registrars of Voters. The SEEC’s Staff Attorney and Legal Investigator both declined to comment because this is an “active investigation.”
Nelson said, “the right to vote is one of the most important and basic parts of a democracy. Having one’s vote counted validates this process.” He says, “By the actions taken by HROV and the moderators at the polls during the 2012 election, we feel we were disenfranchised.”
Hartford has three elected Registrars of Voters and a web page with outdated information regarding elected officials. The Hartford Courant has been calling for a change to the system that allows three Registrars of Voters, calling this practice a type of wasteful spending.
