Town Clerks Collaborate as Protectors of the Election Process

Town Clerks, Leslie Cotton, Southington, Maria Mullady,
Barkhamsted and committee chair, Donna LaPlante of
New Hartford meet as Liaison Election committee.

Published in the Southington Citizen
July 27, 2012

With all the appearances of National Election as a full time process for as much as two years for the candidates and their campaigns, it comes down to essentially a duty performed by voters on one day.

However, being ready for that second Tuesday of November is a complex task for the Liaison Committee on Elections of the Town Clerks’ Association of Connecticut. They are always preparing meticulous and various phases of the processes of elections, primaries, year-round registrations and compliance with state statutes. 

The Liaison Committee on Elections, a group of town clerks from across the state, meets periodically to coordinate their collective efforts to ensure that election processes go smoothly and that results are accurate and operating under strictly secure guidelines.

Present at the most recent meeting on July 10^th in Southington Town Hall were Chairperson Donna LaPlante of New Hartford, Maria Mullady of Barkhamsted and Leslie Cotton, Town Clerk of Southington. Some members not present had scheduling conflicts.

LaPlante explained that the committee coordinates and disseminates general election information concerning guidelines to procedures and forms in compliance with standards provided and coordinated by the office of the Connecticut Secretary of State.  Their job covers review and changes to Absentee Ballots, election day ballots, use of new tabulators that replaced the old voting machines, registration procedures, tracking and verification of information provided by citizens during the course of the year and primary procedures, to name a few of their responsibilities.

Privacy booths for completing ballots

Cotton described how meticulous a process it is to ensure compliance, every step of the way leading up to election day. The new tabulators have brought some changes in the election process including the specific roles of town registrars, moderators and town clerks in the scrupulously checked and balanced vote count with the number of voters who signed in at the polls and absentee ballots counted on election day.  In multi-districted towns like Southington sealed bags of ballots and tabulator tapes are checked at each polling place by election officials and brought to a central election headquarters in town by a designated member of each political party where verification procedures and forms are completed before being delivered by election officials to the Secretary of State’s office.

Mullady pointed out that town clerks offices are also responsible for qualifying the signatures on candidates’ petitions and that voter registrations are on a central system to which town clerks have access to corroborate qualification of voters in a town.  The mostly rare occasional discrepancies in voting procedures, e.g. last year’s reports of voter fraud in Bridgeport, the closely monitored procedures appear to maintain the essentially secure election results citizens expect and deserve.