To the Editor:
The Stamford NAACP and 100 Black Men of Stamford did democracy right at their mayoral debate on Monday night. They opened their doors to all five mayoral candidates and all Stamford residents, and they opened their microphones so attendees could ask questions directly to the candidates.
It was a welcome change from other mayoral debates that hosted the Democratic and Republican nominees and excluded other qualified candidates.
Over 1 million of the 2.4 million registered voters in Connecticut are unaffiliated or independent. That’s 42% of voters, compared to 850,000 Democrats (35%) and 500,000 Republicans (21%). Given the numbers, it’s unfair that Democrats and Republicans are guaranteed spots on the November ballot while unaffiliated candidates are forced to slog through a morass, yet most of the time still end up being excluded.
Do you ever wonder how someone gets on the ballot to run for mayor in Connecticut? Most Democratic and Republican candidates don’t have to knock on a single door or collect one voter signature – they’re hand-picked by local party committees, so all they need is an inside connection. Once a candidate receives the party nod, they’re guaranteed a spot on the November ballot with their name neatly printed on one of the top two lines regardless of how few voters they might represent.
In contrast, unaffiliated candidates must knock on doors and collect hundreds of voter signatures before they have a chance of getting on the ballot. Once they’ve collected the mandatory signatures, they need to have every signature verified by their registrar of voters, they need approval from their town clerk, and they have to submit a petition to the Secretary of State in Hartford. If they can clear all those hurdles, their name will appear as a “Petitioning Candidate” on the ballot, on a line well below the Democratic and Republican candidates.
Alternatively, unaffiliated candidates can run as “write-in” candidates by filing a form with the Secretary of State. As write-ins, their names never appear on the ballot. In fact, the ballot doesn’t even have a line to write in their names, just a tiny box barely big enough for their initials. If a Connecticut voter wants to vote for a write-in candidate, they’ll have a hard time figuring out how when they’re standing in the voting booth.
A third option for unaffiliated candidates is to try running a primary against a Democratic or Republican nominee. To do that in Connecticut, they are required to give up their unaffiliated status and register with a party. Then they still need to knock on doors, collect signatures, get verifications and file a petition with the state. If they can force a primary, the deck is stacked against them because Connecticut’s closed voting system denies unaffiliated voters the right to vote in primary elections.
Civic organizations stack the deck further when they host mayoral debates and only invite the Democratic and Republican nominees. As Monday night’s debate demonstrated, inclusive debates with all the candidates present are an important mechanism for full voter and candidate engagement.
Connecticut is among the minority of states that still allow closed voting systems. As unaffiliated voter numbers grow, closed voting systems are being rejected elsewhere because they give some political organizations outsized control over who gets on the ballot and they suppress voter participation, especially for unaffiliated voters.
Other states and municipalities are moving to open primaries and ranked choice voting systems that give all voters and candidates the right to participate in the election process regardless of political affiliation. It’s time for Connecticut to join the movement. Our democracy may depend on it.
Mary Deery Uva and Annie Selkovits Taylor
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Uva and Taylor are former members of the Stamford Board of Representatives and unaffiliated voters