State Elections Commission Dismisses Complaints Against Town Clerk

By John Voket

In separate decisions on January 18, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) declined to take any action regarding complaints filed against Town Clerk Debbie Aurelia by Newtown’s Democratic Registrar of Voters LeReine Frampton in 2010. By not taking action the commissioners effectively dismissed those complains as either unfounded, or lacking the evidence required to further investigate or find Ms Aurelia in violation of state election laws.

Contacted by The Bee Monday, Ms Frampton said she would reserve comment until she had a chance to review the entire file on the matter. Ms Aurelia said she was happy that the matter has been resolved.

“I’ll continue to work and to represent the best interests of all the residents of Newtown,” Ms Aurelia said. The town clerk with a current staff of three handles more than 100 different statutory functions, including birth and death records, real estate recordings, maintaining local historical documents, and acting as the town’s freedom of information officer.

In the first of two documents received by the SEEC June 23, 2010, Ms Frampton acknowledged that her daughter, Sara Frampton, “unsuccessfully challenged” Debbie Aurelia for town clerk the previous November. This point was also acknowledged among the findings of the commission in their actions to vacate the complaints.

The registrar went on to state that prior to the November 2009 general election, she turned in an absentee ballot for a family friend which apparently was never registered; that Ms Aurelia reentered a polling place on that Election Day after she cast her votes; and that before the third 2010 budget referendum, Ms Aurelia began issuing absentee ballots after the Legislative Council approved the final budget proposal and set a date for the third vote — but before the date of that third referendum was officially set by the Board of Selectmen at a town meeting.

That first of two letters of complaint introduces an incident in which Ms Frampton alleges the Republican Registrar Karin Aurelia attempted to strike information about the aforementioned reentry violation from the poll moderator’s diary. Karin Aurelia is the mother of the town clerk.

Second Complaint

In her second letter of complaint, Ms Frampton stated that in 2008 overseas ballots were missing a minor presidential candidate, and after corrected ballots were provided, the town clerk authorized issuing the wrong ballots, as well as issuing one “to a voter the Saturday before the election when the voter came in to vote in person.”

Then again in 2009, Ms Frampton alleged that an overseas ballot was sent with an inaccurate list of candidates; that “Absentee ballots went out with incorrect spelling of a candidate’s last name which was discovered mid-October; and that same ballot also contained another misprint regarding how many Board of Selectmen candidates to choose.

In 2008, Ms Frampton accused Ms Aurelia of telling a Democratic campaign manager to download absentee applications from the Internet, versus providing them directly to the individual, Sarah Hemingway, who was the campaign manager for the Christopher Lyddy statehouse campaign.

During the Presidential primary in 2008, Ms Frampton accused the town clerk of issuing absentee ballots and accepting party enrollment forms after the deadline had passed; that the town clerk initially told a poll worker that she could not change her absentee ballot vote after a candidate dropped out of the race; and that there were more than 200 more absentee ballots than were accounted for on the town clerk’s list.

The complaint also alleged that during the time when the town clerk was still operating from Edmond Town Hall, legal documents entrusted to the town clerk’s care were left about the office instead of being protected in the vault; that voter check-off lists were left on the corner of an assistant’s desk for months; and that prior to moving into new town offices, absentee ballots were left in open boxes next to a computer used by citizens to look up land records. She also stated that moderator returns disappeared.

Following an investigation on the first complaint, the SEEC found that any issues related to mistakes on the 2008 overseas presidential ballots were the responsibility of the Secretary of the State and not the local clerk.

Regarding the 2009 overseas ballots, the SEEC recognized that Ms Aurelia voluntarily corrected her error a month prior to the election, and “the Respondent’s full cooperation with this investigation and admission of the error; and the length of time between when the error was known to the Complainant and the time of the filing of the instant complaint.” The SEEC also noted that despite the “extensive listing of issues between 2008 and 2010, there is no other allegation, or evidence contained in the investigation to indicate the Respondent made any further error in performing her duties…”

 

‘Take Due Care’

The commission also instructed Ms Aurelia “to take due care regarding her duties under General Statutes,” and should additional evidence arise concerning the performance of the town clerk’s duties, the commission may choose to make further investigation and consider referral to the Chief State’s Attorney.

Regarding a typo on a candidate’s name on local absentee ballots in 2009, the commission found that there was no violation because the candidate authorized the ballot to go forward with the misspelling. Regarding the alleged missing 200 ballots, the SEEC found, “The evidence is unclear whether such ultimately reconciled discrepancy was due merely to disorderly record keeping or a more significant issue. Because this discrepancy was resolved and, in consideration of the burden of reconstructing records from 2008 for a complaint filed in 2010, the commission declines to investigate the matter further.”

The commission also stated that most of issues prompting Ms Frampton’s concerns were apparently known to her in 2008 and 2009, for a complaint filed in June 2010, and declined to further investigate the allegations. To the extent that Ms Frampton has future concerns, the commission encouraged her “to file future complaints in a timelier manner consistent with such concern. Such timely filing is more likely to allow successful investigation in consideration of the likelihood of more readily recoverable records and fresher recollections.”

Regarding the second complaint, the SEEC found no evidence against Ms Aurelia related to the time at which she turned over absentee ballots to the registrar; no evidence to find that Ms Aurelia violated the polling place reentry rule; and that Ms Aurelia complied with both an initial and modified plan to deliver absentee ballots to the registrars.

The commission also noted that in the matter of issuing absentee ballots early, that Ms Aurelia acted appropriately and under the direction of the town attorney; and in the matter of a alleged missing ballot, the SEEC found there was no evidence to support Ms Frampton’s claim that a ballot was lost.

On that final point, the SEEC clarified the statute regarding when the registrar may handle the filing of an absentee ballot, and stated that “while submitting an absentee ballot on behalf of an out of town ‘family friend’ is not necessarily a per se violation, it remains distinctly possible that, in the absence of the above medical status, such absentee ballot was not cast in accordance with [state statues].”