They built this system one bill, one settlement, and one signature at a time

Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram

Look, if you’re a Democrat or progressive who thinks election security talk is just partisan noise, put that aside for a minute. This is not about party labels. This is about a long, deliberate pattern under specific people who held the power to decide how Connecticut verifies votes—and chose expansion of access over verification every single time. The result is a system that makes it harder to confirm a ballot belongs to an eligible citizen and easier for problems to hide. One illegal or improper vote cancels a legal one. That’s math. It affects every honest voter, including the ones who support these officials.

Here’s the full record, name by name, law by law.

Start with the foundation: voter ID that isn’t really required. Connecticut has never had a strict photo ID law. Never. The statute asks for something—a Social Security card or any preprinted form with your name plus address, signature, or photo. If you don’t have it, you sign Form ED-681 under penalty of false statement and you vote. First-time mail registrants face a slightly higher bar for federal races. Everyone else? The affidavit is the out. Former Secretary of the State Denise Merrill spent her entire tenure defending this arrangement. Current Secretary Stephanie Thomas continues it. Attorney General William Tong has helped defend the overall system against federal pressure for stronger checks. The Democratic majorities in the General Assembly have repeatedly killed Republican bills that would have required government-issued photo ID. Meanwhile the same crowd just required ID to recycle bottles for the nickel. Cans get protected. Ballots get the honor system.

Next came same-day registration. In 2012, Governor Dannel Malloy proposed House Bill 5024. Secretary Merrill championed it hard, calling final passage a historic move into the 21st century. The House passed it 83-59. The Senate passed it 19-16, largely along party lines. GAE co-chairs Sen. Gayle Slossberg and Rep. Russ Morin pushed it through committee. Speaker Christopher Donovan and Senate President Donald Williams backed it. Malloy signed it. Starting in 2013, eligible residents could register and vote the same day at designated sites. Online registration followed in 2014. Merrill sold it as turnout and accuracy. The verification window shrinks. Cross-checks against existing rolls or out-of-state data get compressed. A person can attempt multiple towns if the systems lag. A non-citizen who checks the citizenship box can complete the process before anyone digs deeper.

Then the motor-voter expansion. In 2016, under Merrill and DMV Commissioner Michael Bzdyra, Connecticut settled a Department of Justice civil rights investigation over National Voter Registration Act compliance. The agreement turned every driver’s license or ID application and renewal into a voter registration application unless the customer actively opted out. Citizenship remained a self-attestation under penalty of false statement. No documentary proof required. Merrill called it a major step and good customer service. Malloy was still governor when the settlement was negotiated. The system launched. This year a West Hartford non-citizen who had been on the rolls since 2018 through that exact DMV process made headlines after ICE detention. Officials say he never voted and was later marked inactive. One case, they insist. An anomaly. Republicans are asking for a full audit of the software and safeguards. The response so far has been reassurance, not transparent data dumps. When the barrier is a checked box, “anomaly” is a choice of words.

Early voting came next. The path started under Merrill. House Joint Resolution 59 and earlier versions worked their way through the legislature. Voters approved the constitutional amendment in November 2022 by about 60 percent, authorizing the General Assembly to create in-person early voting. Thomas, then a state representative, supported it. Merrill and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz campaigned for the yes vote. After the amendment passed, the legislature and Thomas’s office implemented roughly 14-15 days of early voting. Same-day registration is available during that window. More days, more locations, more points where the verification process can be rushed.

The biggest change landed this year. Voters approved a 2024 constitutional amendment authorizing no-excuse absentee voting by 58-42. In the 2026 session, House Bill 5001—An Act Concerning Absentee Voting For All and Various Other Reforms Related to the Administration of Elections—implemented it. Democratic sponsors and leaders included Rep. Matt Blumenthal, who co-authored and led House passage, and Sen. Mae Flexer, GAE co-chair. The House passed the final version 101-49 along party lines. The Senate passed it 25-11 along party lines. Governor Ned Lamont signed Public Act 26-42 in May 2026. The old list of excuses—illness, out of town, military, religious conflict, election work—is gone. Any eligible voter can request a mail ballot. Applications can become permanent. Ballots go out. Drop boxes remain. Thomas celebrated the law, saying it expands access while strengthening systems. Lamont signed it and stood with Thomas and Tong at press events defending Connecticut’s approach against federal efforts. Tong’s office has spent the last year in court fighting Trump administration executive orders and DOJ actions aimed at tighter mail rules, proof of citizenship for registration, and full access to voter files for list maintenance.

That last point matters. In 2017 Merrill refused full voter data to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, citing privacy. In 2026 Thomas refused the DOJ’s request for the complete statewide voter file—including driver’s license numbers and last four of Social Security numbers—for National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act list maintenance. Tong’s office defended the refusal. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit. DOJ is appealing. Clean rolls require data. They chose privacy and state control over the tools that would let independent auditors find non-citizens, deceased voters, and double registrations more effectively.

Bridgeport shows what the environment produces. Multiple Democratic operatives, including city council members and a Democratic Town Committee vice chair, face charges tied to the 2019 and 2023 mayoral primaries: illegal possession of absentee ballots, misrepresenting eligibility, ballot harvesting, forged signatures, drop-box deposits caught on video. One primary was ordered redone. These cases happened under the old restricted absentee rules. The statewide expansion removes those restrictions. The local machine problems did not invent themselves. The statewide policies created more room for them.

Name the pattern. Malloy proposed and signed the 2012 same-day and online registration law. Merrill pushed it, celebrated it, then negotiated the 2016 automatic motor-voter settlement and spent years advocating early voting and no-excuse absentee. Thomas, as SOS, implemented early voting, supported and celebrated the 2026 no-excuse law, opposed the federal SAVE Act’s citizenship and photo ID requirements, and refused the DOJ voter file. Lamont signed the no-excuse bill and publicly defends the whole package. Tong litigates to block federal verification tools. The Democratic majorities in the House and Senate passed the enabling bills on party-line votes and repeatedly rejected photo ID proposals.

Each step was sold as expanding democracy and modernizing elections. Collectively they expanded the attack surface while shrinking the verification tools. Same-day registration compresses checks. Automatic registration trusts a box. Weak ID can be waived with a signature. Early voting multiplies days and locations. No-excuse mail multiplies chain-of-custody risks and harvesting opportunities. Resistance to federal list maintenance keeps the rolls harder to clean.

Progressives will say documented fraud is rare. Detection is harder when the system prioritizes speed and volume. The same officials who demand ID for bottle deposits reject it for ballots. They celebrate access while fighting the audits and data that would let the public confirm the rolls are clean. They litigate against citizenship checks while a non-citizen sat registered for years through their motor-voter system.

This is not about stopping eligible citizens from voting. It is about whether every ballot that gets counted belongs to someone who is actually eligible. Merrill, Malloy, Thomas, Lamont, Tong, Blumenthal, Flexer, Slossberg, and the Democratic majorities that carried these bills chose a system that makes that confirmation harder. The value of every honest vote—Democrat, Republican, independent—goes down when improper votes become easier to cast and harder to catch. That is the record. That is the choice they made.

‘NO AD’ subscription for CDM!  Sign up here and support real investigative journalism and help save the republic!'