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The state Senate gave final passage Wednesday to a bill expanding the conditions under which Connecticut voters can qualify for an absentee ballot, making mail-in voting easier for commuters and residents worried about illnesses. The Senate sent the bill to the governor’s desk on a 30 to 4 vote Wednesday afternoon. The House approved the legislation on a bipartisan basis last week. Although Connecticut’s constitution contains language explicitly outlining a handful of excuses a voter must use in order to obtain an absentee ballot, the bill eases the restrictions previously written into state law. It removes a requirement that commuters be out of town for all hours in which polls are open. It deletes language requiring a voter to be personally ill in order to qualify for a ballot based on sickness.

“We do have a right to vote that’s constitutionally guaranteed, but the state constitution prevents early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, reducing the ability of a lot of eligible voters to vote,” said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of Common Cause, a nonprofit watchdog group that works to promote equal access to government and the vote. “This is really an opportunity for the state to extend that opportunity for more people to actually be able to vote—it is really about securing our democracy.”

the Connecticut State Supreme Court has adopted a congressional redistricting plan, submitted by the court’s hired expert. The new map makes mostly minor changes to the boundaries of the state’s five districts to accommodate population changes.

Democratic legislative leaders may expedite a bill in the next several weeks to allow expanded absentee ballot voting in this year’s elections, mirroring temporary policies adopted during the past two years as a result of the COVID pandemic. “Voting is the fundamental right underlying our entire democracy,” majority Democrats said in a joint statement Wednesday. “While other states are restricting voting rights, we will take action to ensure that everyone that was able to vote before COVID will continue to be able to vote this year as COVID persists.”

“This is another example of why we need no-excuse absentee voting,” said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause in Connecticut, the voter-advocacy and elections watchdog organization. Quickmire said Wednesday that last year, the state had a chance to put a constitutional amendment supporting universal mail-in balloting on the 2022 ballot, but it did not get enough Republican support to reach the 75-percent super majority.

A Connecticut congressional map recommended Tuesday by a court-appointed special master makes minimal changes in the racial, political and geographic features of districts that have produced only Democratic victories since 2008. The map drawn by Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford political scientist and law professor, was not unexpected, given the state Supreme Court’s directive that he make only the changes necessary to equalize the population of the five districts.