Legislation

In the U.S., serving on a jury is a basic function of citizenship. By excluding people with certain records from jury service, Connecticut is also denying criminal defendants their constitutional right to a jury of their peers drawn from a fair cross-section of the community.

Youth activists have highlighted numerous benefits to lowering the voting age to 16, including making voting a habit before a person undergoes major life changes at age 18, many of which, like moving out or starting college, pose barriers to voting.

A free and fair voting system upholds the foundational cornerstone of our democracy: the right to vote.

People should not be counted as residents of the community in which they are incarcerated because they do not decide where they will be imprisoned.

As an organization that defends the right to vote and believes that enfranchisement is an incredibly important way for people to participate in America’s democracy, the ACLU-CT supports this bill, which would allow formerly incarcerated people convicted of a felony who are on parole to vote.

In Connecticut, during non-pandemic times, voters have shockingly few options for casting their ballots.

We strongly encourage the committee to support these bills. COVID-19 has presented Connecticut with many unprecedented challenges and difficult solutions.

This bill goes a long way toward ensuring that no person will have to choose between their health and their right to vote in November during the COVID-19 pandemic. It could do more, though, to apply this common-sense solution to future elections impacted by this or other pandemics.