HARTFORD, Conn — We've heard that every vote counts, but sometimes people filling out absentee ballots make mistakes that cause their ballots to be rejected.
According to the Secretary of the State's office, here are the three reasons your ballot could be rejected.
- Arrives late (it has to be there by 8:00pm on Election Day)
- The inner envelope wasn’t signed, or isn’t there at all, or the voter put their ballot and someone else’s in the inner envelope.
- They dropped the ballot off in person with no outer envelope
- There is a huge numbers gap between #2 and #3, and there really is no number 4.
In the August primary, over 3,736 absentee ballots were rejected and not counted.
That amounted to about 1.78% of all the ballots cast in that election. Since there were two different ballots cast for the primary, one for Democrats and one for Republicans, officials could determine that more ballots from Democratic voters were rejected, while GOP voters had a higher percentage of their ballots that were rejected.
Here’s the breakdown:
- Total ballots received: 208,921
- Total ballots counted: 205,185
- Total ballots rejected: 3,736 or 1.78%
- Total Democratic ballots received: 168,587
- Total Democratic ballots counted: 165,765
- Total Democratic ballots rejected: 2,822 or 1.67%
- Total Republican ballots received: 40,334
- Total Republican ballots counted: 39,420
- Total Republican ballots rejected: 914 or 2.26%
Applications for absentee ballots can be made here.
Ballots were mailed out starting October 2.
Completed ballots can be dropped off at secure boxes at town halls, or mailed. If you want to check and see if your ballot was received, you can check here
It will show you that your application for the absentee ballot was received by the town and then when your actual ballot was received. The ballot inside the envelope will not be counted until election night, however.
We understand some towns, like New Haven, do not transmit their information to the state. So if your information isn’t clear when you do the inquiry on the website, you should contact your town clerk.