Absentee voting, voter intimidation bills get public hearing

Connecticut lawmakers held public hearings on Friday on several major election-related bills that seek to prevent “harassment” and “intimidation” at polling places and would implement no-excuse absentee voting throughout the state for the first time.

Democratic lawmakers, who hold supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, said the bill focused on voter intimidation was a response to President Donald Trump’s threats to nationalize state and local elections, as well as threats from his allies that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could be used to police polling sites in blue states.

That bill — SB 463 — would, among other things, ban federal agents from arresting or detaining people near a polling location and prevent those federal officials from standing outside election sites to check the voting eligibility.

The bill also makes it a crime for someone to possess a weapon within 250 feet of election sites in certain circumstances and requires local election officials to notify the Connecticut Attorney General’s office if they receive a subpoena for ballots and other records, as recently happened in Arizona and Georgia.



https://ctmirror.org/2026/03/13/absentee-voting-voter-intimidation-bills-get-public-hearing/