OFFICE OF FISCAL ANALYSIS
Legislative Office Building, Room 5200
Hartford, CT 06106 (860) 240-0200
http://www.cga.ct.gov/ofa
sSB-1064
AN ACT CONCERNING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EARLY
VOTING.
Primary Analyst: MT 4/3/23
Contributing Analyst(s):
OFA Fiscal Note
State Impact:
Agency Affected Fund-Effect FY 24 $ FY 25 $ FY 26 $
Secretary of the
State
GF - Cost Between
$1.8-2.3
million
Between
$0.8-1.3
million
Between
$0.7-1.2
million
Note: GF=General Fund
Municipal Impact:
Municipalities Effect FY 24 $ FY 25 $ FY 26 $
All
Municipalities
STATE
MANDATE
1
- Cost
About
$900,000
About
$2,600,000
About
$900,000
Explanation
The bill would result in significant labor cost for both municipalities,
and the state. Additionally, to implement the bill as described the state
would need to acquire additional technology such as CVRS software
updates and to install new lines in any secondary location for early
voting. It is anticipated that roughly
40
2
additional sites would be opened across the state generally in
1
State mandate is defined in Sec. 2-32b(2) of the Connecticut General Statutes, "state
mandate" means any state initiated constitutional, statutory or executive action that
requires a local government to establish, expand or modify its activities in such a way
as to necessitate additional expenditures from local revenues.
2
This calculation assumes that no town less than 45,000 will have a second location,
half of all locations between 45,001-75,000; all locations between 75,001-100,000 will 2023SB-01064-R000388-FN.DOCX Page 2 of 3
proportion to the population of the town. The costs would also be borne
by the state in addition to the cost for the public information campaign
specifically for early voting and registrar's training materials. The bill
places the onus of all labor costs on the municipalities individually, so
the state's share of the costs mostly take effect in FY 24 as one-time
expenses of roughly $1,000,000
3
in year one and are reduced from year
two onward. The largest differential in the range of estimates is the cost
of the public information campaign for early voting. The Secretary of
State's Office has indicated there would be about a $500,000 range in
costs depending upon implementation decisions.
Municipal costs would see the largest periodic fluctuation with the
cost of municipal elections
4
being significantly less expensive than those
of primary and general state elections. This leaves the weight heavily on
even FYs for municipalities. The net cost per municipality would also
not be evenly distributed depending heavily on the number of polling
places each town chooses to utilize. The initial polling place is assumed
to be a central location with existing CVRS access and staffed by existing
registrar and town staff. If a municipality were to only use this location,
they could expect a rough increase on odd fiscal years of $11,200
5
and
on even years of $5,600 when no state general and primary elections are
held.
Any municipality increasing beyond one polling location would
have two locations; all locations between 101,001-125,000 will have three locations; and
any greater than 125,001 will have four. Each town may not meet this criterion, but we
estimate this will roughly be the number of additional polling locations.
3
Specific cost information for this section has come from data provided by the
Secretary of State's Office in the form of estimates from existing vendors to provide the
services rendered.
4
Municipal elections as a figure were estimated based on the % of towns expected to
hold schoolboard elections in CT in 2023 and extrapolated with the remainder from
that point in future years. Municipal elections are presumed to have only one EV
polling place per town for each town. This estimate does not include municipal
primaries.
5
The staffing for this location being existing employees mitigates cost for towns and
leaves the differential to overtime hours varying depending on the number of EV
hours and whether that day falls on a weekend. This estimate assumes an average
overtime hour is valued at $29.12 per hour. 2023SB-01064-R000388-FN.DOCX Page 3 of 3
require additional staff at that location with poll workers instead of
overtime, which would drastically increasing the estimated total cost for
that municipality. Any town planning three additional polling locations
(the maximum number in the estimate) would see an odd fiscal year
price increase of around $90,000. This is largely due to the increased
labor cost of poll workers and the need to fully staff early voting
locations that may be potentially added because of the bill. Costs will
vary on a town-by-town basis.
The bill varies from SB-1057 in that it includes a 14 day early voting
period for general and primary elections instead of 10; and it includes
early voting for town referendums
6
not held in conjunction with general
and primary elections. The difference between costs for all three early
voting bills relates to the length of early voting and the elections covered
on the municipal side. There is no distinction in state costs. SB-1064 is
identical in legislation and cost to HB-5004.
The Out Years
The annualized ongoing fiscal impact identified above would
continue into the future subject to inflation, participation, and number
of polling places utilized across the state.
6
There is no clear data on the number and likelihood of town referendums to include
each year. We have estimated that for each year there may be as many as three
referendums and included that cost on the labor cost component for municipalities.
Each town referendum assuming one voting place would cost roughly $3,000 with a
four-day EV window