Absentee Ballot Index Page

VOTING BY ABSENTEE BALLOT IN WESTBROOK

To get the most benefit from the information in these pages it is helpful to take a very broad top level look at the State mandated rules governing absentee balloting in Connecticut. There are three local situations in which absentee ballots are used.

UNEXPECTED ADJOURNMENT OF A TOWN MEETING QUESTION TO A REFERENDUM. This type of referendum occurs when a regular Town Meeting has been scheduled with questions on its agenda that will be decided by vote at that meeting, but voters petition 24 hours or more before the Town Meeting to force one or more of these questions to a referendum. By State law such a referendum must take place 7-14 days after the scheduled date of the Town Meeting. Since the law also says that absentee ballots can only be given out by the Town Clerk to applicants applying in person, for any referendum with less then 22 days notice, you’ll have to have a local designee, as specified on State form ED-3R get an absentee ballot for you. This is spelled out in the COB procedure referenced below.

PLANNED ADJOURNMENT OF A TOWN MEETING QUESTION TO A REFERENDUM. This is the most common situation in Westbrook. The Board of Selectmen decide on the wording of the Question for the voters and the date for the Town Meeting to discuss the Question and the referendum date the Town Meeting is to be adjourned to. The only item to be voted on at the Town Meeting is the adjournment to a referendum for the question under discussion. Although unlikely the adjournment could be voted down by the voters at the Town Meeting. As long as the time between the Selectmen formally deciding to have the adjourned Town Meeting (and notifying the Town Clerk about it) and the date of the referendum is 22 days or more the Town Clerk can process applications for, and distribute Absentee Ballots by mail. (See additional comments at the end of this page.) State form ED-3 is used for this. This is also spelled out in the COB procedure referenced below.

REGULAR ELECTION. Since there is always more than 22 days notice for this, applications for, and the distribution of, Absentee Ballots can always be done by mail. State form ED-3 is also used for this. This is also spelled out in the COB procedure referenced below.

Note that the "Assessors" form referred to in these procedures is unique to the Town of Westbrook. Each municipality in Connecticut has a different form or none at all. If you don't live in Westbrook check with your local Town Clerk to see how your town verifies your eligibility.

Some of the links in this section are to PDF files and off site web pages. Use the BACK button on your browser to return to the COB site from these links.

COB Procedure: http://www.westbrookcouncilofbeaches.org/AbsenteeBallotProcedure.htm

COMMENTS:

The detailed COB procedure was written from the viewpoint of someone wanting to vote by Absentee Ballot, who lived out of town and hadn’t planned on voting until they heard the referendum announced. As the procedure points out you can now plan ahead for referendums before you leave town for the Winter, which greatly simplifies the process, reduces the time constrains and costs involved. This was made possible by the agreement of our former First Selectman, Tony Palermo and our former Town Clerk, Lori Baldi, to a request from Gerry Dyar, the President of the COB, that the so called Assessor’s form be converted to a generic format that would apply to any referendum not a specific one as it had in the past. This reduces what was a mandatory three step process to two steps. Note that If you take the form with you for the winter and use it after the new grand list is created either down load an updated form or change the year of the grand list to the current grand list year on the appropriate line before mailing it in to the Town Clerk.

In addition a motion requesting three changes in the process was presented to the COB by Ross Cushman of Pilots Point Association and was unanimously passed at the 8/2/04 COB meeting. As a response to part of this motion, the then First Selectman, Tony Palermo, agreed to make the time between the scheduling of a referendum and the referendum itself, as close to 28 days as possible but never less than 22 days. This is important since scheduling a referendum less than 22 days in advance would effectively disenfranchise most out of town voters. Subsequent administrations have followed the same policy.

There are two other items in the COB’s formal request that are still under discussion, and will be reported on in the near future.