State lawmakers passed a bill that will protect voting rights in the Constitution State.

David McGuire, the Legislative and Policy Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut said, “These changes should ease people’s ability to exercise their fundamental right to vote. Whenever a voter is wrongly turned away due to misunderstandings about identification requirements, or some other error, our democracy is compromised.”

Senate Bill 1051 requires that registrars of voters be certified; the deadline for mail-in voter registration be increased from 14 to seven days before an election and that voter identification requirements be displayed in each polling place.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut has received numerous calls over the years about election officials turning away voters because they did not have a driver’s license, despite that not being a requirement to vote.